


Contractual Obligation

by thegoodreverend



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: Adventures in Neitherworld Bureaucracy, Movie time-line with some show characterization because I suck at writing jerks, Slow Burn, borderline slice of life negl, grown-up artist!Lydia, i just love melodrama so much, seriously a very slow burn and then a very quick escalation, so much melodrama y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-26 18:25:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 39,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15668763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodreverend/pseuds/thegoodreverend
Summary: In the Spring of 1997, Lydia goes back home to Winter River for a reprieve from city life. What she expects is lots of gingham, quiet mornings, lazy afternoons, and watching bad paranormal investigation shows with Barbara at three A.M. while they take bets about how long it'll take Delia to wake up after taking so many pills. What she gets is an important life-lesson:Bureaucracy's a massive pain in the ass.





	1. Winter River

Time on Saturn was different.

Lydia didn't know that. Barbara and Adam did, but it didn't occur to them to worry about it. A sandworm was a sandworm and if you were lunch, you were lunch, and the afterlife's leading bio-exorcist was definitely lunch as far as they were concerned. To their credit, they were new and they had no idea what they were doing, or who they were dealing with. They didn't know any better about much of anything.

The ordeal with the poltergeist had unsettled Lydia, if nightmares for years qualified as merely unsettled. Non-specific nightmares she didn’t remember fully that probably didn’t make sense, about snakes and violent screaming, and lecherous moldy hands. The nightmares had stopped recently, but thinking about how awful her life could have been had Barbara not come to her rescue still made her feel sick. How bothered she still was by the ordeal embarrassed her and contradicted her carefully crafted image so in her waking hours she tried not to think about it. Over the years she thought about a lot of different things instead. She thought about school, and photography, and her father and Delia, and she thought about college applications and part-time jobs, and agents and galleries and magazine shoots. Most of all she thought about the Maitlands.

When she met them, they gave her something she craved and couldn't put her finger on. It wasn't stability, although they certainly gave her that, and it wasn't support, although they gave her that too. The words she wanted were "unquestioning acceptance". She loved them, and in retrospect she'd do everything all over again, even if they hadn't ended up coming to her rescue. Even as she traveled far from home, her thoughts usually came back to them. There were more phone calls for Adam and Barbara than there were for Charles and Delia. There were more late-night conversations when she was home, more photographs dedicated to them hanging in galleries. More portraits too, not that you could tell - all that developed on film were shadows and, if she was lucky, an outline of a form. But still, it was the thought that counted. That's what Barbara said. The critics just liked the composition.

The Maitlands were what made Winter River home in her mind. The Maitlands made coming back to the house tolerable. She hadn't noticed it when she lived there, but after the first Christmas home from college she definitely did - she noticed the way her arms tensed in the living room where the holes in the ceiling were no longer visible, the way her skin crawled crossing the spot where her father had been dropped from the second floor, the way the spot on the wall where the little gray preacher had disappeared attracted her gaze and made her feel like something was about to spring out of that spot and grab her. Even with the comforting layer of decor that screamed Adam and Barbara, there was something cold and creeping there. But she'd lived in four different states since she graduated college, and cold and creeping or not it was still the only place she thought of as home, so when her lease was up and when she realized how exhausted she was from the city, from the shows, from the interviews, from the fucking _networking_ , she figured, what the hell. Take some time at home, back to basics. Maybe some photos of Adam and Barbara to cleanse her palette. Delia and her father never protested her return, either. Delia especially, now - Lydia hated admitting it but as she got older she realized that they had a lot in common. It helped that Delia had calmed down considerably.

As she expected, her return home was quiet and welcoming. Her room was kept for her, like it always was - plain and dark and inviting. There were no holes in the living room ceiling, even though she felt like she could see them. Just Delia's sculptures, which Lydia didn't mind so much anymore. She didn't know if it was her getting older, building a tolerance, or realizing there was way worse art out there in the world that people got a lot more pretentious about. And in any case, they weren't  _T_ _hat_ sculpture.  _That_ sculpture was in a gallery in New York that she avoided at all costs. All sculptures Delia made before and after  _T_ _hat_ one were stellar, as far as Lydia was concerned. One day she'd get drunk enough to ask Delia why it seemed like a good idea to sculpt that creep's face and put it in a gallery. One day she'd get drunk enough to smash that disgusting face with a mallet and that day would be the best day of her life.

The drive home was long and peaceful, and people in town waved to her while she drove through. She waved back awkwardly, adjusting to being back in a place where everybody knew everybody else. It had its pros and cons, but it absolutely wasn't the city, and that was what she wanted. Most importantly, when she pulled up in the driveway the Maitlands were waiting for her. Adam brought her bags up from the porch to her room for her, and she and Barbara brought her equipment down to the dark room.

"I'm so glad you're back," Barbara sighed when they were finished and headed back upstairs, and slung her arm around her shoulders. "Delia is driving me  _nuts_ , she got a wild hair and she's trying to get me to budge on the wallpaper."

"Still?"

"I know."

"It's been like, nine-"

Lydia stumbled on the top step and stopped, gaping. A glinting had caught her eye at the foot of the steps, and now that she was closer she saw what it was and it made her feel cold and sick. Had that always been there? Had she missed it before, or had it somehow found its way there?

"Lydia? Are you okay?"

Barbara's hands gripped her shoulders, and Lydia reached forward tentatively to the gap on the top step. There was enough room to squeeze her pinkie finger in and dislodge what had shocked her.

"Honey?"

The metal was cold against her palm. Freezing, far colder than the rest of the room, and it didn't seem to warm up in her palm. She held the wedding ring up for Barbara to see.

"Please tell me that's not what I think it is," Barbara said, brow drawn.

"I wish I could. God, what if he's back?"

"No, honey, no - he's long gone, he's not coming back. I don't think you  _can_ come back from that, dead or not."

"I can't believe I never noticed this here before."

"Maybe it was lodged somewhere and it rolled."

"Maybe."

"I think I know a better place for it."

"The trash?"

"The trash."

Barbara wrapped her arm back around Lydia's shoulders again and squeezed as they walked back into the kitchen, and the ring was tossed unceremoniously where it belonged. 

Distance had not made Lydia's heart grow fonder. Of course, time on Saturn was different. If a few hours in the land of the living were minutes, years were only weeks, and sandworm or no sandworm the afterlife's leading Bio-Exorcist wasn't anybody's lunch. 

 


	2. A Huge Mess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knock-knock, guess who.

Lydia woke up smelling something she couldn't identify and wondered if she was having a stroke. A few groggy moments later she determined that no, she was probably not having a stroke, but whether or not she had totally and completely lost her mind was still up for debate. There were raised voices coming from upstairs, at least one she didn't recognize, but mostly Barbara and Adam. Something was happening. She heard the door to her parents' room open and shut, and somebody running up the stairs, and she realized that the smell was ozone.

Lydia slung her legs out of bed and stood, straightening the sweater she was wearing with every intent of going up to the attic to figure out what was going on, but she never made it more than a step. 

"Now, I know the sandworm wasn't your idea, babe, but that was low. It hurt me, 'kay. Look at me. You got no idea what I been through – did ya even miss me?" 

Lydia spun on her heel instead of taking the step she intended and stumbled into the bed frame, unbalanced. She gaped for a few moments at the dusty, maroon-suited fiend leaning against the opposite wall - her tongue felt frozen watching him blow a cloud of smoke from his cigarette and glower. He looked a little worse for wear, but otherwise identical to how she’d seen him last – certainly not as visually terrifying as he was in all the nightmares she'd had since that point, but the fact that he was standing right in front of her made up for that. He shifted his weight from the wall and took a step forward, and his face went wolfish as he made a very exaggerated show of looking her over.

"Looks like I missed some good, uh. Plot development. Babe. Honeybun. Snookums. Lift up the shirt and let's have a look at the goods, whaddyasay." 

It was enough to snap her out of her fear-inspired freeze and she backed away quickly from the bed. "Betelgeusebetelgeusebetelgeuse!"

He began to curse abruptly, flailing his arms and pulling at his face in an dramatic display of panic, and for a second she thought it had worked – but nothing was happening. He dropped his arms to his sides and snorted. His lip curled into a sneer. Lydia thought it might be a good idea to run.

He darted towards her before she could act, and without realizing she was even moving she felt the impact of the wall against her back and his hand flat against her chest as he loomed over her. He smelled like wet dirt and she gagged on it. "Don't work that way anymore, sweetcheeks."

"Get your hand off me," Lydia ground out, suffocated by the earthy smell and shaking with fear. Or anger. She couldn't tell - probably both.

What she expected was a retort. Something sleazy, cruel. What she got was his lip curling and a puff of smoke in her face, and the hand on her chest drawing back. Slowly, tense, like he was fighting the motion even as he was making it. His brow furrowed, face contorting with confusion. Lydia swallowed.

"Back up,” she said, mouth dry.

"Hey hey hey, this is fuckin'  _bullshit_ ," he growled, taking reluctant step after reluctant step back. "What the fuck is this? What are you doing?"

Lydia just blinked, watching him back up until his legs hit the bed and he stumbled back onto it, and then  _kept crawling backwards_ . 

"Stop."

He froze in place and smirked. "I see how it is. Got me where ya want me, huh."

"Ew."

"Come get some, babe."

Lydia ignored him and leaned against the wall, dragging her hair out of her face. Her heart was racing and she felt dizzy - this couldn't be happening. Her money was on mental breakdown now. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping when she opened them again he'd be gone.

She had no such luck.

"You're real."

Betelgeuse scoffed at her. "You new?"

"I mean, how - how'd you get here? The sandworm-"

"I brought him."

Lydia snapped her attention to her door, which had opened without her noticing. A woman stood there, and just inside the doorway stood the Maitlands who clutched at each other and stared at Lydia with apparent desperation. She could just make out her parents behind them.

"Who are you?"

"A huge bitch," Betelgeuse grunted. The woman ignored him.

"Juno. I'm the Maitlands' caseworker, and that animal's ex-boss. I found him with a shrunken head terrorizing people in my waiting room and had to ask myself, who in their right mind would take him out and not put him back  _immediately after I reminded them how important it was_ ," she paused to shoot a look at the Maitlands. "It took me a little time to realize there was nowhere to put him back in. You, young lady, have made a huge mess of things." 

"I thought it was kinda sweet," Betelgeuse tacked on, and then hacked phlegm.

"That's enough out of you," Juno glared at the poltergeist, pointing a crooked finger. She was treated with a sneer and a puff of smoke but received no further comment, so she turned her gaze back to Lydia. "Miss Deetz, he's your problem now."

Lydia blinked and swallowed, looking at the Maitlands who offered no further explanation. Feeling the numb clutch of panic, she shook her head at Juno. "Why?"

"You let him out. You married him. He's your problem."

"I didn't! I mean, I let him out, but I didn't marry- I didn't even say yes! I didn't have a choice, it was the only way I could stop- The preacher didn't-"

"A deal's a deal, and that deal was made as soon as you agreed to his terms and he kept his end of the bargain. Ceremony is just a formality as far as the Department's concerned.  _T_ _hat_ mess is in your hands." 

"Civil union, babe. Padre only had one word to go, anyway, practically finished the damn thing so it's as good as-"

"Shut up!" Lydia snapped, and then watched with half-horrified satisfaction as his lips snapped shut. He grasped at his face like it’d help him open his mouth again.

"How'd she do that?" Adam gaped. Betelgeuse looked equally confused.

"You'd think with his professional background he'd know to read the fine print. He always was a lazy son of a bitch any time it counted," Juno smirked and shifted her attention from Betelgeuse to Lydia, who was still staring at the poltergeist frantically trying to free his lips from their invisible constraints. "He's out of our hands for good, but he owes that to you and he’s obligated to follow your instructions. And be fully aware, we're holding you responsible for him. Anything he manages to mess up is an oversight on your part. And a little advice from somebody who's had to deal with his bullshit for six hundred years, he's a handful and he'll find ways around whatever you tell him, so try and anticipate. We'll be checking in."

"Can I get a divorce?" Lydia swallowed, finally able to move her gaze to Juno. She caught her just as she disappeared, leaving only the Maitlands there, with her parents peering over their shoulders looking horrified. Barbara looked like she was about to cry.

"She just showed up upstairs and told us," she whispered.

Lydia didn't know how to respond, so she just nodded and looked back at the struggling figure on her bed.

 


	3. Strategic Errors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia suffers a lapse in judgement.

Adam put his hands in his pockets and watched Lydia pacing across the attic. "What are you gonna do?"

"He has to listen to me, so I - I don't know, I could just like, put him in a box or something and we could keep him in the basement and like... forget about him."

"I don't know about that, Lydia, he's got a lot more experience dealing with this kind of thing than we do. What if he finds a way out?"

"Adam, look at him. I'm pretty sure if he could think of a way around it he'd be doing it right now," Barbara scoffed from her spot on the couch, gesturing to the farthest corner of the room where Betelgeuse sat with his knees drawn up in the air, hands on his shins, glaring.

"I tried to be thorough," Lydia said.

"That said, I agree with Adam. The last thing we need is for some poor kid to open that box a hundred years from now and next thing you know, some unsuspecting family has to deal with him."

"And more practically, it gives him an opportunity to stew on it. You know, push his boundaries," Adam offered.

"I mean, I could keep him like this and have him follow me around. That way we could watch him," Lydia suggested, looking between the Maitlands.

"Might be the best option. At least until we figure out what to do with him after you head back to the city."

"What if you have to leave the house?" Barbara asked. "If you make Charles watch him he'll probably have a heart attack."

"God no. I don't trust them not to miss him doing something, anyway," Lydia sighed. "I'll leave him up here if I have to. Otherwise he'll just be where I am, I guess. I'm not super excited about having him sitting in my bedroom all night, though."

She heard a puff of air and turned to see him grinning.

"Don't get excited, you're not gonna see anything."

 

* * *

 

 

The plan had seemed solid at the time. When she'd come up with it she was still in shock, still worried she'd be having nightmares again. The nightmares never came, and life felt weirdly normal, and it took about a week for her to cave. 

The first few days he'd spent just glaring daggers at her. Thankfully not literal daggers - she'd covered her bases there, remembering how intensely he was able to manipulate the world around him. By day three he was starting to deflate, and by the seventh day he wasn't looking at her at all. He stared at a spot on the floor, and that was all he did. Lydia wanted to be happy about that, because it meant she didn't have to worry about what he was doing.

Lydia wasn't happy about it, though.

It made her uncomfortable, and she thought he was probably doing it on purpose. The man had spent a couple hundred years crammed in a dark hole, he could handle a few uncomfortable days. He was acting up because Lydia was there and he could read her like an open book. He was a con artist, it was part of the territory. She knew this. She knew he was doing it on purpose, but she also knew she also didn't like seeing people suffering, regardless of whether or not they deserved it, and watching him deflate was making her feel sick. It had started distracting her - weighing logic (he's a vulgar, revolting, manipulative, destructive animal trying to get what he wants and don't you dare give it to him) against her natural distaste for hurting things, and her distaste was winning out the longer and longer the debate went on. Really, how bad could he be if he had to listen to her? She was smart. She could figure him out, too. And she was stuck with him - she was going to stay stuck with him, as far as she could tell, and the idea of him drifting silently behind her staring into the void until she died wasn't appealing. 

She pressed her print down in the developing tray and swallowed. Her foot tapped and she felt his attention shift to the movement.

"I'm considering letting you talk," she said, willing herself to sound calm. She thought she was doing a pretty good job. "But I want you to remember if you get out of hand I'm gonna shut you up again, and you only get one chance. Toe the line too much and it's over, and you'll have it worse than you do now."

She chanced a look over her shoulder. The red light didn't help his face look any more alive, but she did see that he was looking at her, immediately engaged. There was doubt and mistrust on his face.

"You understand what I'm telling you?"

He nodded. Lydia exhaled and rinsed the print off. She inhaled as she hung it up, and when she exhaled again, she gave him permission to to talk.

"Fuckin'  _finally_ \- you sadistic bitch." 

She shot him a glare and his mouth snapped shut, eyes wide. Satisfied the parameters of her permission were expressed she went back to work. "I know it was torture for you not hearing the sound of your own voice for a whole week."

"You mean this voice, the voice of a fuckin' angel? Damn right it was. Honestly, admit it - you missed it too."

"Just because I let you talk doesn't mean I want to talk to you."

"Who else'm I supposed to talk to. I mean, I'll talk to myself but I'm stuck here so that sounds like that’s a you problem, babe. So, what's it gonna take to convince you to let my hands loose? I got a itch you do  _not_ wanna help me scratch." 

"This is treading into mute-button territory."

"What?" He squawked at her indignantly. "I'm just bein' honest, what do you want from me? Experts will tell you, honesty is the foundation of any healthy relationship."

"If I let you unfold, you can't do anything that will directly or indirectly result in damage to anybody dead or alive in this house. Or anywhere."

"You're fun at parties, aren't you."

"Do you want your hands or not?"

"Fine, fine, yeah, sure, no fun, I got it."

"Okay. On condition you follow instructions, you can move around. No more than a foot around where I put you."

She heard him sigh and shift, stretching out his limbs as much as he could. "In all seriousness babe, there's perverts out there who'll pay good money for this."

"Thanks for the advice."

"See, this is nice. Little banter to stop the  _mind numbing boredom_ ." Sarcasm dripped from his voice and Lydia rolled her eyes.

"Well if you'd rather go back to how it was before-"

"No, nope. I'm good, thanks. So, uh. What's with the sudden release? I'm a menace to society, I might go getting ideas. You know, stew on it and push my boundaries."

"I think I'd rather deal with you after a week and a sandworm of being pissed off and not a couple years folded into a human pretzel."

"Well look at that, it's not just your tits that developed. Your foresight's gotten a little more reliable."

"If you say another thing about my tits-"

"I know, I know. Mute in the Time Out Corner." She heard a scoff and a crunching sound and didn't bother turning around to see what disgusting thing he'd put in his mouth. "So what's next, what're we doin'. Don't tell me you live at home with mom and dad. Oh shit - babe, did you run off and get married to somebody else? Did he leave ya, is that what it is? How could you do something like that to me? My heart can't handle it ."

"If only," Lydia scoffed and finished hanging the last of her prints. "C'mon. Follow me."

"Struggling artist? Mom and dad footin' the bills?"

She led him out of the darkroom and towards the kitchen, beginning to wonder what she was going to say to Barbara about why, exactly, she let Betelgeuse have any freedom at all. She already knew the face Barbara was going to make at her. Lydia had always thought of it as her Mom Face, and -

"Woah, baby. Yeah."

She stopped and turned to see Betelgeuse's face much lower than it needed to be, angled up at her as she went up the stairs ahead of him, and felt her stomach clench. She frowned, and his face flitted from lecherous to slack to a cheesy grin as he held his hands up in the air.

"Hey, you were right in front of me."

"Listen."

"Okay, listening, got it."

"You're not funny. You're not cute. I am not charmed, or intimidated, I'm just bored. I don't give two shits what you think about, but I don't want to hear it. And if I keep hearing it, you're gonna end up somewhere worse than the - the Time Out Corner. Understand?"

"Yup, got it. Understood." His hands and grin jumped as if he was reaffirming his innocence, and Lydia grimaced and started back upstairs.

Nothing she could tell Barbara was going to be convincing, and  _I felt bad for him_ left a bad taste in her mouth. She was just going to have to dodge the questions. And the Mom Face. She was so distracted thinking about Barbara that she forgot there were more people she was going to have to explain things to. 

Charles and Delia had migrated from the study to the kitchen since she last saw them, and she didn't know why it hadn't occurred to her that somebody being in the kitchen was a possibility. It caught her off-guard, though, and she didn't respond fast enough. He opened his mouth before she could.

"Mom. Dad. Shucks, I missed you guys."

They did a double-take and before Lydia could jump in, the screaming started. She heard him chuckling behind her.

 

 


	4. Truce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia takes her poltergeist on a walk.

“Most of this stuff is fake. I bet none of these guys have even seen a real ghost.”

“Haunted houses are hard to come by,” Adam nodded. Lydia looked towards Betelgeuse as he sighed loudly.

A year ago Barbara had discovered a paranormal investigation show called  _Paranormal America_ and she watched like it was a soap opera; religiously, every afternoon at two. She thought it was a comedic train wreck, laughing at obviously fake ploys and announcing that a real ghost would do a much better job. Adam watched it with a certain amount of hesitation, and Lydia suspected that he was reliving bits of his own trauma. Lydia thought the show was stupid, and the pastel-wearing psychic got on her nerves.

“This house,” the psychic was saying, holding her manicured hands out in a gesture of forced relaxation, “has been cleansed.”

“What does that even mean?” Lydia asked. Barbara and Adam looked at each.

“Cleanse, exorcise, same difference. One’s just nicer soundin’ if you’re into that whole vibe, but end result is you end up in the same fuckin’ place. Take it from me, don't ever go to the light,” Betelgeuse grunted from the floor again, eyes closed and hands on his stomach.

“The Lost Souls room,” Adam grimaced.

“Bingo. These people got no morality.” 

“Neither do you,” Lydia pointed out.

“Gotta fight fire with fire, babe. When breathers hire these scumbag psychics, you bring in a Bio-Exorcist or you die the Big Death. My skills are being _wasted_ , okay, I’m sittin’ up here while you assholes watch bad reality T.V. Awful.”

Adam frowned. "What did you think getting out was going to entail, exactly?"

"Nothing this boring."

"Sorry you can't spend all day terrorizing innocent bystanders.”

"Listen, I don't wanna hear it from a guy who spent all his living free time in a dusty attic working on a scale model of the world's most boring town, ‘kay. You're boring. You, as a person, are boring. Your opinion here is invalid."

"Lydia, are you going to let him talk to me like that?"

"I dunno, it's kind of a fair point," Barbara shrugged before Lydia could say anything, and Betelgeuse snickered.

"Barbara!"

"What? You two have a very different idea of excitement!"

"I don't know why the fact that I don't find murdering people amusing means I'm boring."

"Nobody said anything about murder, Adam."

Lydia let her eyes slide from the T.V. to where Betelgeuse was stretched out on the floor and saw him smirking, clearly pleased with the spat he'd started. Barbara and Adam kept bickering.

To be fair, she could see where he was coming from. Winter River was a sleepy town and the house was quiet. There wasn't much to do, and while Lydia certainly enjoyed staying home it was partially bearable because she knew she was going to be going back to a city eventually, where she'd get her fill of people and then come back for a reprieve. Betelgeuse might have secretly been hoping to maim somebody but she imagined he'd be considerably less bored in New York or Chicago even if that wasn’t the case, which she figured was more likely. He'd certainly be a lot less bored if he wasn't cooped up in the house. Less boredom meant less acting up.

She closed her book and got up, stepping over his legs and making her way downstairs. She heard the familiar groaning protest and a heavy drag, and looking over her shoulder saw him dragging face-down across the floor after her, and then thudding down step after step like a rag doll. She had a standing rule that he had to follow her and could be no more than ten feet away at any given time. Usually it wasn't that big of a deal.

"You are such a drama queen."

"This is gettin' old already."

"You'd probably enjoy it more if you stood up first."

"Hey, you don’t know me like that, Don't kink-shame-"

"Can you go outside?"

Betelgeuse stopped, startled out of his trajectory. "What?"

"If the Maitlands leave the house they end up on Saturn. Can you leave the house or not?"

"I, uh. I dunno."

"Guess you're gonna find out."

"Aw babe, Saturn? Y'know how I feel about - wait, this isn't a worm trick, is it? I thought we were over this, I thought we had somethin' _real_ , and here you are trying to feed me to a worm."

"I need to leave the house, and I’m not leaving you with them. So I guess you better hope you don't end up on Saturn."

"Wait wait wait!"

He was in front of her, suddenly, barring the door, and she stopped short of running into him. Guard up, she stepped back and balled her fists, and tried to focus her attention on his eyes. Not on the mold near his mouth or his disgusting teeth or how terrified she was that he had found a way around her instructions and had just been waiting for a moment to take it all out on her-

"Tell me not to go to Saturn."

Not what she expected. Lydia relaxed her hands. "What are-"

"Just tell me not to go to Saturn. Safety precaution. I've gotta listen to you so, y'know. Tell me not to go. Just in case, please. C'mon."

"Okay, fine. Don't go to Saturn. Good?"

"Great. I hate sandworms."

"I know. Now, move. And Betelgeuse?"

"Yeah, yup."

"Nobody sees you. You don't hurt anybody, or scare anybody, or we go straight back to the attic and you can get your kicks listening to Barb and Adam make small talk."

"What do I get if I’m a good boy?”

Lydia ignored him and grabbed her camera and bag from the hook by the door, and walked past him. She did her best not to make any faces at the sight of him stretched out on the hood of her car.

 

* * *

 

The lighting was bad, but she didn't really come out to take photos. She told herself she was taking him out because was because he was liable to get all pent up and even more impossible to deal with if she kept him inside. Really, it was an experiment.

She had a list of things she was going to permit, and if she was being honest she kind of looked forward to them. She expected little pranks. Untied shoelaces. Weird chills. Unsettled people and their little shrieks of surprise - that was something she was going to allow. She’d even take his insisting that shocking a person wasn’t scaring them, debating the finer points of the rules she set as if she didn’t know what her words meant. What she didn't know is if he'd try and push further than that, and if so, how much.

The answer was... not much.

She was shocked, and maybe it was that more than the lighting that was throwing her off her game. While he definitely showed interest in messing around, he seemed almost distracted just watching. People, plants, buildings, cars. He slowed down to watch a finch struggling with a large piece of bread, which she thought was maybe the most boring thing she'd ever seen him do. He was just following her and watching.

She walked towards the Maitlands’ old hardware store and the wind gusted, and nothing seemed all that different to her until his hand appeared from nowhere and grasped her bicep. She gasped and jerked, but the scream died in her throat. He was just standing there with his eyes closed and she knew immediately the hand on her arm was only to stop her moving away, because the wind had split the clouds and he looked like he hadn't felt the sun in a thousand years. Lydia guessed that probably wasn't too far from the mark and when he looked at her it was quick and fleeting and thick with embarrassment, and she had to look away. She felt like she'd walked in on him naked.  


She raised her camera up and looked for a different view. "Got it."

The hand withdrew and Lydia didn't turn again. She could still feel the embarrassment radiating off of him. In that split second he’d decided to grab her, clearly he’d made a choice between ignoring something he wanted and letting her see something revealing. Years ago, he'd blatantly told her he wanted out for good, and she'd always assumed the reason he wanted out couldn't be good. Now she wasn't so sure. Maybe his sole joy in afterlife wasn't chaos and fear, maybe he was just like every other ghost and he just missed being alive. Maybe she was a fucking idiot and she was falling for some carefully planned trap and as soon as she felt comfortable he was going to turn her own orders against her somehow and free himself. The world was full of possibilities.

He cleared his throat, and Lydia kept walking.

 

* * *

 

 

"It freaks me out when you're quiet."

He huffed a laugh and blew a cloud of smoke. Lydia blinked at him sitting in the corner of the room. "I'm stewin' on somethin', babe."

"What."

"You didn't stop me touchin' you today."

Lydia swallowed and dug her fingers into the bed. "I told you not to hurt me."

"Lotta things I could do, touching and not hurting."

"You didn't."

"Like I don’t know you'll fuck my shit up if I get too wild. I ain't an idiot. Just thinking about this, uh. Uneasy truce. Yer givin’ me a lot of room to work with. Don't think I didn't notice, there were _plenty_ of things I coulda done out there today that didn't break any of your rules."

“I get the feeling you're trying to get something out of me right now.”

“Naw. Just stewin'.”

He inhaled, and when he exhaled it was all smoke. She sat up in bed and swallowed again.

"If I feel like you won't hurt anybody, I might consider letting you out. Briefly. Under certain circumstances."

"Aw shucks, ya trust me."

"I'm not an idiot."

"Y'ain't scared of me anymore?"

"I'm not an idiot. I know you're dangerous and I know you're full of shit, but I also know you wanna stay out. And I'm not a sadist, so it’s not fun watching you stuck in here."

He was strangely still. "I'd owe you one. If you let me out briefly under certain circumstances."

"I said I'd consider it. Why d'you wanna be out so bad?"

His foot started to bounce. When he spoke it sounded bitter. "I miss it. Why'd you let me go outside with you?"

"Precaution. Leave a dog inside too long it gets all pent up and starts destroying furniture."

"I  _do_ have a lot of animal magnetism," he curled his lip, looking smug, and stretched his arms out. 

"You've got a lot of ego. You're-" Lydia snapped her mouth shut and swallowed it. Not the time. She was still assessing the situation. "Can I have one of those?"

Betelgeuse quirked an eyebrow, and then he was sitting next to her. Not in the bed, just hovering beside it, and it was so fast that Lydia's heart jumped into her throat. He had two cigarettes in his mouth and was lighting the second, and then held it out to her.

"Ew, that was in your  _mouth_ ." 

"You want it or not?"

Wrinkling her nose, she took it from him. "Next time you can just hand it to me."

"I think you oughta get over your germ problem. We're married, y'know."

"Maybe you oughta get your mold problem under control."

He narrowed his eyes, and then grinned. It was thick with purposefully-exaggerated ego and mock-flattery. "What were you gonna say about me, babe."

"What?"

"Before you asked for the cigarette. You started somethin'. C'mon. You can tell me. I’m yer man."

Lydia narrowed her eyes back at him and blew smoke in his face. He just breathed it in, and she considered the best course of action. Uneasy truce, he'd said. Something about that sat right with her.

"I was gonna tell you you're not how I remember you."

"Good thing, bad thing."

"Good thing. That was one of the worst day of my life. I had nightmares for years."

"Not _the_ worst? I'm losin' my touch. Good thing I retired."

Lydia rolled her eyes. Betelgeuse chuckled and prodded the corner of her mattress absently.

"Different circumstances, Lyds. Y'know, this whole teamwork thing, just ain’t my style. But I figure, uh. Since we're on the same team, like it or not, might as well give it a shot. Y'know, gettin' to know you and all," he looked at his hands with exaggerated bashfulness.

"You wanna stay on my good side so I give you what you want."

"That too, yeah. Don't have to be a one way street, babe. I got a wide set of skills – don’t call me the Ghost with the Most for nothin’."

"Oh yeah? Wanna get me an ash tray?"

Betelgeuse held out his hand, palm up. Lydia looked at it, and then up to his face, and didn't break eye contact as she dropped ash in his hand.

"Go back to the corner, Betelgeuse."

 


	5. Accommodation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia lengthens Betelgeuse's leash.

"I don't know how she stands that guy," Barbara breathed. "What is she doing? I mean, does she even know?"

"Lydia's a grown woman, Barb, she can think for herself," Delia said, not looking up from her cooking.

"He's terrible. I think maybe if he wasn’t so disgusting I could deal with his personality but in combination with the rest of him? Like, everything about him is terrible. I think he actually purposefully exaggerates how awful he looks."

"I know." Delia picked up her martini and walked over to stand next to Barbara, who was staring out the window at the porch where Lydia relaxed in a chair reading. The poltergeist sprawled like a large cat on the deck, glaringly bright in the sun. "At least he's been behaving."

"Yeah, but for how long."

"If I was looking down eternity crammed in whatever dark corner Lydia can come up with, I'd probably behave for as long as possible."

"He's gonna be with her forever, Delia. God, I can't even imagine. She's gonna be single for her whole life."

"Like that's gonna bother her," Delia laughed, and moved back to the counter.

Lydia lifted herself from the seat, putting the book down. Barbara saw her mouth "stay" at Betelgeuse, who said something back that made Lydia roll her eyes as she passed him. She made her way into the kitchen and eyed Barbara and Delia before heading to the fridge with a mumbled, "hey guys", fully aware they'd been talking about her and obviously uncomfortable with it.

"Does he smell any worse after baking out there?" Barbara blurted. "He looks like a dead fish."

"Not any worse than normal," Lydia shrugged. "Maybe a little better, honestly. I think it's helping with the mold. Drying it out."

"Oh good, so I'll find that flaking all over my house," Delia smiled sarcastically, and Lydia returned the look. Delia swatted at her softly.

"Why don't you just put him in the basement for a little while?" Barbara asked, pulling a face when she saw Lydia taking two beers out of the fridge.

"I dunno, he's not that bad once you get used to him," Lydia shrugged again, flipping the caps off of the bottles.

"Why's he behaving? What's he up to?"

"He's up to staying free."

"I don't trust him, sweetie - just be careful."

"Thanks mom, he promised to have me home before curfew too," Lydia cast a pointed look at Barbara, and took the beers outside.

Delia didn't say anything, but she smiled smugly as Barbara gaped at Lydia walking out the door, and kept gaping watching her hand the Ghost with the Most a beer.

 

* * *

 

 

Lydia brushed out her hair, frowning. Barbara wasn't wrong to feel the way she did - every reasonable part of her screamed that she should feel the same way. She shouldn't trust him, shouldn't fall for whatever scheme he was coming up with. And yet, despite every logical part of her, she was finding herself getting comfortable. He was a terrible monster with long nails and disgusting teeth and a bulging gut, but he was also entertaining and not terrible company. The longer he was around her the more she found herself thinking that he was a greedy and self-serving prick, but he was only dangerous when he was trying to get something he wanted; that maybe he didn’t start every day wondering how he could ruin somebody’s life. Maybe he wasn’t naturally malicious. Chaotic and mischievous, sure, but not malicious. On your average day, if he was alive and left to his own devices, he was probably more likely to get drunk and sleep on the porch and fight with telemarketers when they called than he was to murder anybody.

She didn't know if he was trying to make her feel that way and she was falling for it, or if it was just how he was.

"If I let you out," she started, and paused because her voice sounded so loud suddenly. "You can't hurt anybody. Nobody can see you. You can't go more than a mile outside of the town limits. You can't terrorize anybody. You come back before dawn."

"Terrorize, huh. What about just a little scare? Bitty one."

Lydia narrowed her eyes at her reflection, and then at where she knew he was sitting even though she couldn't see him in the mirror. "You get three itty bitty scares. If I don't hear anything bad tomorrow, I might consider more."

"I can live with that. Is this trust, babes?"

" _No_ . I'm just giving you the benefit of the doubt."

"So... mother may I?"

Lydia turned and saw him sitting stiff and upright on her bed, clearly suppressing eager excitement. She sighed. "Don't make me regret it. Go on."

Betelgeuse remained in the room for three more seconds. Half a second more on the bed, two more pressing his disgusting mouth to her cheek in an exaggerated kiss, and another half second jerking back, laughing, and disappearing. Lydia shrieked and clutched her neck, before wiping at her face frantically and starting to laugh. She heard her father calling for her from the next room.

"I'm fine, dad!"

Lydia looked at herself in the mirror. "Just a fucking idiot."

 

* * *

 

 

She woke to find him sitting on the foot of her bed watching the sun come up. He didn’t look at her, but she thought he must know she was up because he always seemed to know.

“Did you behave?” She asked, voice thick with sleep.

“If following the rules means behaving, yeah,” he chuckled, and looked down at his hands. “Miss me?”

“Actually, it was kind of nice not having to wonder if you were creeping on me when I was sleeping.”

“Aw shit, I’m an idiot, that’s why you let me out. You went and got all five fingers wet without me.”

“As if I waited this long to do that, what do you think happens in the shower.”

“ _Dirty girl_.”

Lydia laughed and kicked at his hip, and he turned to look at her finally and she _hated it_. He was smiling but it looked wrong and completely devoid of energy. Immediately Lydia regretted making him look at her, and she made a show of flinging her feet out of bed and stumbling over to the dresser to pull out her clothes, yawning and stretching. She collected her things and made her way over to the bathroom, tossing instruction out as she went.

“Stay in the bedroom.”

“Fuckin’ tease.”

“Not everything’s about you, Betelgeuse.”

“Fuckin’ tease _and_ a liar.”

Once the door was closed she listened for a few minutes, but didn’t hear anything. She swallowed and looked at her feet on the tile, and wondered if she’d ever seen him make that face before. All his other insincere smiles hid bitterness and anger and clear frustration because he preferred a life without rules, and she’d preferred thinking it wasn’t possible for him to feel the way he looked. Betelgeuse could be a variety of things, could feel a variety of emotions, but she didn't think this one should be possible.

He'd looked sad.

Lydia shook it out of her head, and undressed.

When she was finished and went back into the room he was back to his regular self, sprawled wide across her bed like a large cat and smoking. He looked at her as she walked over to the vanity and sat down to do her makeup, and kept staring at her with his eyes narrowed. After a few minutes of pretending not to notice, Lydia sighed.

“What.”

“I didn’t hear nothin’ in there, you sure you were doin’ it right?”

“Ew, hey!”

“You said stay in the room, I stayed!”

Lydia fought a smile and turned around to see him belly-down and facing her, chin propped on his hands and legs kicking in the air, playing as innocent as he could. She wondered what he thought “innocent” looked like. “The fact that you think it has to be loud probably means you've only seen people _faking it_.”

“ _Ouch_ , Lyds.”

“Fair to consider, Beej.” She shrugged and turned back to the mirror, only to see him again. He leaned back against the vanity off to the side, lower body floating. She ignored him and started her routine.

“Well _that_ was definitely PG-13. Are we friends now?”

“I don’t know, are you any less of an asshole?”

“Pff, you like it,” he grinned and paced his words the same way Delia did. Lydia scoffed.

“I like that you’ve stopped trying to gross me out all the time, that’s what I like. If you’d lose the mold I’d like you even more.”

“Y’know, when ya say things like that, it hurts. It hurts me real bad, deep inside. Under this handsome, rakish exterior, I’m a real sensitive guy.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Whatever, you just keep cakin’ on that eyeliner. Smoke it out real good. Black like your soul.”

Lydia  leaned closer to the mirror to finish her eyes. “I’m gonna ask you a question-”

“Ooo, subject change.”

“-And your answer isn’t gonna matter because I’m not letting you off the leash either way, so you can tell me the truth.”

“Sure, go ahead, shoot.”

“Do you miss scaring the shit out of people?”

“Terrorizin’ ‘em?”

“Yeah.”

“Lyds, you ain’t really known true freedom until you’ve scared a grown man so bad he shrieks like a little bunny and pisses his pants, it’s life’s greatest thrill. Or death’s.” he snorted, and took a cigarette out of his pack.

“Even when people get hurt?”

“You say that like it oughta bug me.”

“Well yeah, I mean – they’re people. You were people too.”

“Don’t see what that’s gotta do with anything, they don’t mean jack shit to me personally. I mean, worst case scenario they kick the bucket, and it ain’t like the game’s over so I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“Would you terrorize me to death?”

“Depends on how nice you ask me.”

“C’mon Betelgeuse, answer the question. You know what I mean.”

Betelgeuse blinked and she realized she’d given an order, and before she could take it back because she hadn’t intended to force him, he opened his mouth and looked at his nails. “Well first off, killin’ ‘em ain’t normally the goal but when I take a job I do it right and hey, you do what you gotta do. That said, scarin’ you that bad wouldn’t be fun. And I don’t do nothin’ that ain’t fun if I don’t have to.”

“Aw, that’s sweet. You like me.”

“Don’t rub it in, god damn.”

“I’m gonna tell all the other ghosts, you’ll lose your street cred.”

“You’re _mean_ when you wanna be.”

Lydia pulled her best Delia Brand Condescending Smile and patted his bulging stomach before standing and heading downstairs.

He spent the rest of the day misbehaving in various ways, and she scolded him but she didn’t force him to stop because it was hilarious. She didn't know when he'd officially progressed from being annoying to her to being funny, but it had happened and there was no going back. He was full of energy, teasing Adam and popping around corners to scare her father, following Delia around the kitchen too closely, leaving bugs in unexpected places. When Lydia asked if Delia had seen anything weird on her jog and Delia had informed her it was the same boring town as always, he looked at her smugly and buffed his nails on his suit jacket, before appearing behind her and snapping her bra strap. She cursed at him, and when she spun around she saw nothing and heard only shrill laughter.

She suspected part of his acting out was covering up for the morning, and she was alright with that. She wouldn’t stop him. She had no desire to see him make that face again.

“Well, somebody’s in a mood today,” Barbara scoffed.

“I dunno. It’s kinda cute,” Lydia shrugged at her, stretching on the couch.

Barbara pulled an unconvinced face, watching the poltergeist with his arm around Adam’s shoulders, Adam stiff and uncomfortable. “Don’t let him hear you say that, it’ll just get worse.”

“We’ve started a good reward program, he’ll keep a lid on it.”

“Lydia, don’t tell me you let him touch-”

“Ew, no. No, Barbara. Mold.”

“I didn’t think so,” she said, relieved.

“I can’t believe you even went there.”

“He’s a horn dog, where did you expect me to go?”

“Literally anywhere else.”

Barbara rolled her eyes. “Still. You don’t think he’s gonna take advantage of that? The reward program.”

Lydia shrugged again. “We’ve kinda got a truce. He’s not that bad. As long as you get used to him and he’s not trying to kill you.”

“That’s a big ‘as long as’, honey.”

“C'mon, he's funny.”

“Ooo, girl talk. Don’t let me interrupt.” Betelgeuse’s gruff voice interjected as he loomed between them abruptly over the back of the couch. “Babs, yer husband’s a pussy. Sorry to break it to ya, but I think I made him cry.”

Lydia fought to suppress a smile as Barbara rolled her eyes. “Oh, leave him alone.”

“He’s just sensitive,” Lydia said. Betelgeuse gave a phlegmy snort of a laugh.

“Yeah. A sensitive pussy.”

Lydia shoved his shoulder.

 

* * *

 

 

“I don’t like this lady,” Barbara said. “She’s trying too hard.”

“I mean, you _are_ a ghost, so-”

“I wouldn’t like her even if I was still alive. Look at her. She’s just… fake. I don't even care if she's not a real psychic. She’s all fake, as a human being.”

“Oh, I like post-midnight Barbara,” Lydia grinned, taking a sip of her drink. 

She was buzzed, which made  _Paranormal America_ at least slightly tolerable and bordering on funny. She hadn’t been able to sleep, and she knew it was because she had no clue what Betelgeuse was getting up to out in town. Sure, Delia's morning jogs had shown he hadn't done anything catastrophic in town as of yet, but you never knew what could happen. Maybe it was also because it now felt weird to be on her own – he’d been around her almost all day for the past few months and now the silence seemed extreme. 

He didn’t ask to go. He waited patiently. She got changed and ready for bed, and as she turned off the light she told him the same rules as before applied, and he was gone. The first few nights she’d tossed and turned, and then finally fallen asleep, but it didn’t get much easier. She learned that Barbara was usually awake, though – upstairs in the attic, watching her stupid ghost show on the tiny T.V.

“Do you think he’s really duked it out with people like that?” Barbara asked. “You know. Professionals. Not like Otho.”

“Probably. He gloats so much if he thought it was anything special he'd talk about it all the time, so it must be pretty normal for him.”

“You know, I’d pay to see him fuck around with this lady. It would be amazing. I bet she couldn’t handle him. I mean, the smell alone. I bet all her furniture is white and under plastic covers.”

Lydia chuckled and leaned against Barbara. The T.V. psychic she hated was walking around a quaint foursquare, holding her hands out in front of her, dressed in pastel-colored scarves. She was the exact opposite of Betelgeuse. He probably would be too much for her.

“What do you think happens to these guys when they die?” she asked. “Do you think Otho is just out there having a good time, or do they make you pay up for sending people to the Lost Souls room?”

“No idea. Maybe they have to clean restrooms or something. You could ask Betelgeuse, I’m sure he knows.”

“Yeah, or he doesn’t and he’ll just make shit up.”

“Yeah, or that. Where is he, anyway?”

“Somewhere,” Lydia shrugged a little, and finished the whiskey and Coke.

“Ah. Somewhere. Taking advantage of the reward program,” Barbara said. Lydia heard the expression on her face in her voice – bemused, lips tight.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m sure you gave him very good rules.”

“Not really,” Lydia said, and was surprised it came out of her mouth so easily. “I mean, the important things, but I left some… gaps. Between you and me?"

"Yeah?"

"I've been letting him outside at night for like, a week. He's been doing fine. Maybe not _behaving_ exactly, but… he wants to stay out.”

“Sounds like you’re testing him.”

Lydia didn’t answer. The episode ended, and another one started up. Barbara adjusted to put her arm around her shoulders. 

“I’m sure he’ll keeping doing fine.”

She sighed, and and watched the psychic's co-host shaking hands on the T.V. "Thanks for not scolding me for letting him out."

"You know what you're doing, Lydia, you don't need me telling you what to do."

“I don't know if I do. I don’t know what’s happening, Barb. He used to scare the shit out of me, and now I kind of miss him.” 

Barbara squeezed Lydia's shoulder. 

 

 


	6. Backfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betelgeuse tests the water, and things get a little choppy.

He started resting next to her after he came back from his time outside. Lydia didn't know what he actually did and she was hesitant to call it sleep - he certainly couldn't  _need_ to sleep. But he didn't need to breathe, either, and she definitely heard breathing, so who could say. Barbara and Adam slept, so maybe he did too. He lay beside her, close to the edge of the bed and silent except for that rattling sound he made when he breathed and the occasional flick of a lighter and puff of smoke. It was mostly the smell that clued her in - that wet earth smell, which at first had repulsed her but now was oddly comforting. She never felt the bed shift, never heard him approach. It was just that smell, followed by breathing. 

He never moved to touch her, although she didn't credit him with anything resembling respect for her. He was just very aware she'd send him straight back to square one if she woke up to find his filthy hands fondling her and he'd spend the next few months, at least, immobile and mute. She didn't pretend to think he was anything other than a very smart, very caged wild animal. If he ever found a way out of his situation she suspected she'd be first on his hit-list, regardless of whether or not it was him who got himself into the situation in the first place. A lion turning on a trainer. Given how limited his patience was, though, she thought she was relatively safe assuming if there was a way out he'd have figured it out by now. So maybe she didn't need to worry about it. Maybe she was safe. Maybe it was okay that she enjoyed the control she had, because if she was being totally honest it was thrilling.

She was getting comfortable around him, which she knew was a mistake. The feeling that she had was too close to trust, but she had it anyway and she knew it didn't make sense. It didn't make sense in the same way the fact that he'd somehow gotten less repulsive to her didn't make sense, in the same way she got that fond feeling in her chest when he snorted when he laughed, in the same way he had started making  _her_ laugh. It had been developing for months but the smarter part of Lydia’s brain had chastised her into at least second-guessing the feeling – that part of her brain, though, had apparently given up. She wasn’t just getting comfortable around him – she  _was_ comfortable . It didn't make any sense. On the other hand, if she'd learned anything at all in life, it was that not much made sense anyway. 

"I know I'm irresistible but I didn't realize I was  _that_ hard to stop thinkin' about."

She sighed. "Not a moment passes where you're not at the forefront of my mind."

"Knew it."

Lydia rolled onto her back and her arm bumped his. She didn't move it. Betelgeuse grunted and fumbled in his pocket, before finding and lighting another cigarette and handing it to her. It had happened often enough she didn't question it now - three months ago she would have and did crinkle her nose in disgust. 

"When we gonna split? Y'know, get outta town, hit the road, see the world."

"It's cute that you think I'd even consider unleashing you on the rest of the world."

"C'mon, you're not gonna stay here forever. You gonna leave me here for mom and pop and those stiffs to deal with?"

Lydia inhaled. No. She probably wasn't. "You realize I'll just keep you in my closet or something, right?"

"Makin' me miss that god damn model. At least then you’d forget I was there and I could get a look at the goods."

She laughed a little, even though she knew he wasn't joking. He held out his hand and she tapped ash into it, and took a deep considering breath. "If you keep behaving, I might consider taking you with me and letting you walk around."

"Like you'd know if I been behavin'."

"I'm pretty sure Juno would have come and torn me a new asshole if you weren't."

He laughed. "She'd a torn you three new assholes."

"Thanks for not putting me in that position."

"Ain't doin' it for you. If she'd do three for you imagine how many I'd end up with. Self-preservation, babe."

"You're like a cockroach with foresight," she put her cigarette out on his palm.

"Thank you."

Lydia smiled. Betelgeuse lit himself another cigarette, and he didn't speak again until she had closed her eyes and was starting to fall asleep. He repeated himself, more seriously.

"Thank you."

"Hn."

"Y'know. Fer lettin' me out and not keepin' me in here. I appreciate it."

"Sorry you can't fuck shit up like you wanna."

"I'm findin' new ways to fuck shit up all the time, babe, just you wait and see."

"I don't want to know."

He laughed, snorted, and she couldn't help but smile. He sighed and she felt his arm shift against hers as he settled. "Nobody's ever done anything like that for me. Y'ain't gonna regret it."

Lydia wondered, as she fell asleep, if either part of that statement was true, and decided that she didn't dare assume he was being honest but she couldn't help but appreciate the sentiment.

 

* * *

 

 

Barbara knew that she had been letting Betelgeuse loose on the world at night, and Lydia didn't think she'd told Adam. She never said anything, but occasionally when Delia would bring up rumors of mysterious chills and moving items from town, she’d catch a glare from Barbara. She never responded, and Barbara never said anything about it. Lydia thought that band large she’d gotten far more tolerant of the poltergeist.

She started finding things around the house, things she refused to think of as gifts. At first they were tucked in corners in the darkroom, hidden in drawers and crannies in her room, before she started waking up to find them at the foot of her bed. Little bones and teeth, rodent skulls, interesting looking bugs. Once it had been a perfectly preserved bee tucked inside honeycomb, and another time a delicate, massive moth, and despite herself she felt strangely flattered he’d opted to bring them back for her rather than just eat them. He never said anything about what he left for her, and sometimes he wasn’t even in the room when she woke to find them. It was almost like he wanted to avoid being there when she noticed – she’d catch the briefest glimpse of him on the mornings where she found the not-gifts, and then he was gone.

Things escalated with the brooch.

He left it in a shoe in her closet for her to find like a loose Lego. She should have noticed – it was right on the heel, visible if she’d been paying attention, and she should have been paying attention because it should have been obvious that it was only a matter of time before he put something somewhere really inconvenient. A shoe was a perfect place. She could practically hear him. _But babes, honey, sweetie, I had to hide it somewhere outta the way. Can’t just keep shovin’ my goods in your spare holes, people will start to notice. Heh heh heh._ _Hack cough spit._

After cursing loudly and jumping back, she half-lunged down to pluck it out of its hiding place. She expected a rock. And it kind of was one. An expensive rock, set in metal. She blinked at it for a few seconds, trying to process what she was looking at, before shoving it in her pocket, finishing the task at hand, and dashing out of the room.

She checked the attic where the Maitlands confirmed they hadn’t seen him, and the living room, and the basement, and then she fought back the feeling of panic at his absence. Of course he was here. He’d left it for her, he’d been back. Lydia hopped the stairs two at a time up to the kitchen, where Delia and her father sat with their respective papers. Before she could open her mouth beyond a “hey”, Delia pointed one perfectly manicured finger out towards the sink and the window to the porch beyond it.

Lydia felt her cheeks turn a little pink. Duh. “Thanks.”

The porch. Betelgeuse liked that porch like the Maitlands liked the attic. She made a note to make it the first place to check, next time.

He was stretched out in a chair, with his feet propped out in front of him, dressed in what looked like the same ratty robe she’d seen him in almost a decade ago, sunglasses on and beer in hand. Nostalgia, if you could call it that, hit her hard – a flash back to a younger, more desperate version of herself, temporarily distracted by this weirdo who was terrible at charades flailing his arms about. At the time, his question to her – that _why_ – had been an annoyance because what business was it of his, this stranger trying to pretend like he knew what it was like. She’d forgotten almost as soon as it had happened, the rest of the night had been so chaotic and he had been such a terror. Now though, it bothered her when she thought of it. He’d let something slip without meaning to. Lydia wondered how he managed to con anybody, ever, with how much he let slip. If he was ever successful at it, it was probably because he was so weird and the situations he conned people in were so abnormal they were too overwhelmed to catch him.

She shoved her hand into her pocket and grasped the brooch as she walked over to him. He didn’t act like he noticed her at all, but he must have been watching her approach because he wasn’t startled.

“Where did you get this,” she said, holding out the not-gift for him to see.

“Why, don’t like it?” He grinned a little, clearly pleased with himself, as he took a drink.

“Beej.”

“Trust me, babes, they don’t miss it. Won’t even notice it’s gone.”

“If you stole this from somebody’s house-”

“A house? God damn. Whaddya take me for, an idiot?”

“Well, you had to get it somewhere. Nowhere in town would sell something this nice, so - Oh no. Betelegeuse. You didn’t.”

“Look, she ain’t gonna miss it. Old crone had a thousand of ‘em buried with her. She’s got straight copies in the Neitherworld, ‘kay, she ain’t gonna give a shit if it’s changed hands topside.”

“You… you really oughta put it back.”

“You gonna make me?”

Lydia opened her mouth, and then closed it again and looked at the not-gift in her hand. It really was beautiful. The stone was a deep bloody color, and the setting was black, and she _did_ like it, and nobody had really thought to give her anything like that since she’d graduated high school.

“Garnet,” he offered, and she didn’t need to look at him to know how smug his face was.

“Don’t take anything else from anybody else’s grave, okay?”

“You got it, sweetcheeks.”

She closed her fingers around the brooch and put it back in her pocket, and walked away hearing him chuckle. Part of her felt guilty. Another part of her felt like Betelgeuse had some fair points.

The next not-gift was a pair of earrings, which matched the brooch. Lydia found them sitting out on her nightstand not even a day later, and had a few seconds of panic wondering if he’d broken rules because that would be a  _bad sign_ before she realized she hadn’t spoken correctly. She’d made a mistake, she'd used vague terminology without meaning to because she was used to him knowing what she meant, and he’d exploited it. Granted, and he’d exploited it to do something for her, but he’d still exploited it. The panic turned to anger pretty quickly after that.

On the way down to find him, she knew it wasn’t the first time it had happened. He'd pushed her boundaries before, but he was angry enough that she was having a hard time pinpointing what made this different. She hadn’t put her slippers on, she had no make up on, she was tying strings on her robe as she ran down the stairs. It was 3 AM. Delia was asleep, and there was no waking her up. Her dad wouldn’t come down. There was no way Barbara and Adam would hear her if anything escalated. All things considered it wasn’t bad timing. He had that going for him.

This time, her first try was right. He was in the kitchen, and he jumped up like he’d been interrupted and was surprised, and she couldn’t figure out what he’d been doing but she didn’t _care_. She was mad.

“Woah there, babes, what-”

She walked up to him and slapped her hand hard on his chest, leaving the earrings and brooch in his hand when he moved it up on impulse. “You fucking put these back where you found them, or I swear to god-”

“What the fuck, Lyds.”

"You broke the rules."

"I did _not_ , excuse you."

“You did too!”

“You said, and I quote, ‘don’t take anything else from anybody else’s grave, okay?’,” he said, duplicating her voice perfectly even though his lip was curling like he was about to spit venom. “And I didn’t go into anybody else’s grave, I went in to the same one, so-”

“You knew what I meant!” She shouted. She fought the urge to cover her mouth after even though she knew that had been _loud_ , and she fought the urge to wipe at her eyes even though they were watering. He looked stunned by her sudden outburst. “You knew it made me uncomfortable, you knew what I meant, and you took advantage and did it anyway. You took advantage of me.”

There it was. That was the reason. Arguing the meanings of words she’d included on purposefully open-ended instructions was one thing, but this had been a genuine mistake. The part of her talking her down from bursting into tears was telling her that she was lucky he hadn’t done it in a bigger way, that she’d been silly to give him so much room to move, that he was just doing what came naturally to him and it was a misguided attempt to be nice, but she was barely managing to listen to that voice. She was just staring at him, waiting for him to do something. He did nothing but blink at her.

“Lyds, I didn’t mean it like-”

“I don’t care. I don’t care, take them back and never do that again.”

“Lyds-”

“I don't - no. No. Don’t talk to me. Not for the rest of the night.”

She wanted him to get angry. Maybe throw the jewelry at her, or throw all the dining ware out of the cabinets, something that an angry ghost would do, but he didn’t do anything. He just stood there like she dumped cold water over his head, and so she turned around and ran back upstairs, swallowing back tears. 

 


	7. Domesticated Animals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things have not worked out like Betelgeuse planned, in any respect.

When it started, Betelgeuse had a thousand plans on how to get out and all of them ended with a variety of creative ways to murder Lydia. Sure, the plan had been hampered somewhat by the fact that his wife was _extremely fucking thorough_ and had him more or less immobile and powerless for two weeks. That had been its own special brand of hell, watching her go about her mundane fucking tasks and listening to Adam’s insipid commentary. He figured he could probably get along with Barbara if he really had to but Adam. Adam was a loser with no balls who made a library look like a fun time. Adam rubbed him the wrong way, that was just a fact.

He knew when she’d let him stretch out his limbs in the darkroom that he’d won something. He knew that if he played nice she’d let him go, because the kid looked a lot more intense than she really was. She was a delicate kinda person, a Good Person, she’d hate seeing him all miserable and unfulfilled. All it took was a little dead-eyed gazing, which he had down to a science. Of course, she was a little smarter than he’d initially given her credit for and while she’d caved she wasn’t really slipping up enough for him to take full advantage of it in any way she didn’t expect him to. Murdering her became less of a priority. This was a friendly competition if it was anything at all. He could respect that. If he had to be stuck listening to some schmuck, it wasn’t so bad it was her, and it didn’t hurt that she was a _babe_. She was a babe when they got married and she was even more of a babe now, all developed and confident, _and those legs_. He loved a good pair of legs. Couldn’t resist ‘em.

Being an experienced con – an artist, if you will – he knew what a con going wrong looked like. He knew exactly when his plan had shifted from friendly competition to failure, when she’d started winning without even knowing it. He knew down to the second, although at the time he still thought he could recover. The first outing they’d had, when he grabbed her arm. To be more specific, when he’d grabbed her arm, and she hadn’t screamed, and she fucking _averted her gaze._ The moment had been a double-whammy, the realization that she had given him that much wiggle room without his noticing it and that she knew something about him nobody else did and knew it without him telling her. If she thought about it Lydia could probably pinpoint the moment too – hell, for all he knew, she knew the tides had fucking turned in the exact moment they had. Shit was gonna change and she knew it, he was sure. She was smart. He liked that about her, just like her legs. 

The last six hundred years had been spent trying to get out, with varying degrees of success, and he finally had it. Or at least, as close to “it” as he could get with still being dead. That cramped his style a little, he had to admit, and if it wasn’t for Lydia he’d be out in public being a pain in the ass all the time and having to face that fact head-on. In the insulated little bubble he was in in Winter River, though, that wasn’t so unusual, and he had a lot of time to focus on the things he’d missed being stuck underground. The sun. The wind. Especially the wind. He found he’d missed watching people too, although he hadn’t realized it. And animals, when they’d let him near. All the things he’d been able to see and feel before he threw it away like a fuckin’ idiot over some chick.

There was a moment where his plan failed catastrophically, and he wasn’t sure if Lydia knew about that one. Hell, it was embarrassing to even think back on it. He was back to his regular shit, losing sight of the big picture because of dark hair and big eyes and a brain on top of nice legs, and he’d thought he was over that. Old habits died hard, though, and all it took was coming back one morning to find her all vulnerable and asleep and restless. Bad dreams. He could help with that. He _knew_ he could help with that. Bad dreams were another one of the special services he offered during his Bio-Exorcist days, he knew bad dreams. So in retrospect, given that he knew his own shit, he couldn’t blame himself for crawling into bed with the girl and putting a hand on her forehead and helping her out, but he sure as shit couldn’t justify it. And he certainly couldn't justify sitting there wondering if he was the bad dream, or if it was somebody else, and if so who he would need to fuck up. Especially since he fucked himself right the hell over, because she’d turned toward him, and that’s all it had taken – the slightest tuck of her forehead against his shoulder, as if she was thanking him for easing her dreams, and he was buying into his own con. If he’d had a heartbeat it would have stuttered in his throat, and she wasn’t even awake. She didn’t even know she was doing it.

Getting out was not an option after that point. Even leaving the house for the night felt like it was just in preparation for coming back, and every waking moment was spent focused on her in one way or another, whether it was about impressing her or how he was going to resist putting his hands on her lovely little body. Healthy? No, definitely not. But did he really give a shit?

When did he ever.

If he was trying to lie to himself, which he didn’t often do, he’d say that the gifts had started as a ploy. He’d say that he had seen that little rat skull on the ground when he was fucking around in the woods looking for hormone-influenced teenagers to scare, and his first thought hadn’t been _Lydia would like that_. But he didn’t lie to himself because good cons knew when to get out and if you were in the habit of lying to yourself you’d never know when that was, so even though it was humiliating he could admit that he’d started bringing gifts back for her because he wanted to. It also had the added benefit of confusing her a little, making her just that much more comfortable around him. It had really sealed the deal. Just a couple more right moves and he was _in_ , game over, victory for the B-Man.

He’d thought that, anyway. He figured she liked him more than she’d say. She was definitely fuckin’ _fond_ , anybody could see that. He knew Delia and Barbara could see it, the way they hissed at each other like nobody would notice. Maybe Lydia didn’t, but he did. Lydia liked him. She liked him, and she gave him room to move, and gave him a much longer leash than he probably deserved. This jewelry bullshit had been a strategic error on his part and who knew how far it set him back. He couldn’t say it was something he did on accident, he’d just… got the wrong idea. That’s all. He thought she’d left it phrased that way on purpose, that it was a hint, because Lydia didn’t like doing bad things and she never made mistakes, and obviously liked his taste in jewelry. The old bitch was buried with way more than she needed and it was just sitting there in the ground – Lydia deserved it much more.

And she’d _shouted_ at him. Shouted! At him! And what did he do but stand there and take it. God, he was a shadow of his former shade. He oughta go up those stairs and show her who was really in charge, who had control and who had been a stupid little girl who’d left a _lot_ of room for him to work with.

He knew even while he was thinking about it that it wasn’t going to happen. Maybe back when he’d first moved in, but even then he wouldn’t have even really enjoyed it. He was going to put the stupid hunks of rock back in the ground where they’d be wasted an unappreciated instead of lining her delicate, pretty face, and he was going to leave her alone, and when the sun was up he was going to grovel at her feet like a dog. It was pathetic, what he’d been reduced to, standing there thinking about her upstairs (crying probably, she looked like she was going to cry, now he’d gone and made her cry) and feeling guilty, feeling ashamed that she was up there regretting the choices she’d made about him. Guilt and shame were things he usually avoided at all costs.

Pathetic as it was, he stood where she left him in the kitchen. His brain wasn’t working. Half of him wanted to sit on the floor and cry and the other half wanted to fuck everything up. She hadn’t told him not to destroy any property, and the fact that he hadn't had been a courtesy on his part, something he was actively doing in a super misguided attempt to impress her that clearly hadn’t worked out. He’d felt stupid making the conscious decision then, and he felt even worse about it now. He could fuck everything up. Actually, there were a lot of things she hadn’t told him not to do that she probably hadn’t even thought about because she was young and she’d never had to handle anybody like him before, he could-

“Did she tell you to stay put or something?”

He blinked and snapped his attention to Barbara, who stood in the kitchen entry with her arms folded. He shook his head and moved his legs as if to prove her wrong, but couldn’t think of anything to say. Disgusting. Curling his lip, he tossed the jewelry in the air, and it was gone. Back where it belonged (or didn’t belong, in his professional opinion).

“What happened?”

“Better hold on to somethin’, cause this is gonna shock you, but I made her mad.”

“Yeah, I heard. What’d you do?”

“The regular.”

“Ah, the regular. So many things that could be,” she said, and she came into the kitchen. He watched her put in a new batch of coffee. A glance at the clock told him the other Deetzes would be up soon, but she was making more than enough for the two of them there. Barbara liked doing human things still, which he couldn’t judge. She liked drinking coffee even though she didn’t need it. She was taking down two mugs and looking at him as if daring him to tell her he didn’t need one, so he kept his mouth shut on that topic. No flower-dressed freshman-spook was going to goad him in to jack shit.

“You hear everything?”

Barbara’s eyebrows arched as she turned back to the coffee. “Lydia’s voice carries pretty well, turns out. You took advantage of her. Adam and I were debating what that meant, so I figured I'd better find out.”

“Hey, I didn’t touch her-”

“I didn’t say you did. Adam thought that might have… you know. Might have done something like that but I’m pretty sure she would have put you away forever. And told us.”

“Dunno why you married that idiot.”

“He’s got a nice ass,” Barbara deadpanned, and he barked a laugh before leaning back against the counter. Barbara poured coffee and handed it to him “So, what happened?”

“She uh. Wasn’t real clear with a guideline and I pushed when I shoulda pulled, if you catch my drift.”

Barbara looked unimpressed as she poured coffee and handed him a mug. “Sounds pretty intentional to me.”

“I read some signals wrong.”

“That’s not much of an excuse – wait, you know what. It’s you, you have no idea how regular people function.”

“I guess not. I was trynna do something _nice_.”

“Well, she’s crying upstairs now so I’m gonna say you failed.”

Betelgeuse drank. He appreciated that Barbara read his moment of coffee consumption as an emotionally constipated pause, as long as he didn’t have to admit that wasn’t too far from the mark.

“What, exactly, did you do?”

“I took jewelry from a dead lady and gave it to her. Twice. She didn’t like it.”

“You gave her jewelry.”

Betelgeuse pulled a face at her and furrowed his brow. “What.”

“I'm worried that you have some weird afterlife disease that turns you into a completely different human being and I don't want you to give it to me.”

He tried to make a comment. Tried to sneer, do something gross to distract, but his mind blanked. He felt deflated, and when he looked back at Barbara he knew she could see it. Suddenly he missed the model, he missed trying to con and bribe and manipulate his way back into doing what he loved most (breathing, being outside, fucking, reigning down uncontrollable chaos upon all he encountered), instead of sitting in some rich fuck’s kitchen feeling all _emotional_.

“You can’t expect it to be that easy for her. You’re a lot to handle even on a good day. She’s trying to trust you.”

“I fucked up, okay, you don’t need to tell me about it. Just tell me how to fix it.”

“I’m sure she’ll fix it herself. It’s just gonna take her a little time. All you have to do is just keep acting like you have been. I know she appreciates it.”

“Is that good small town optimism or a bad attempt to get me to behave.”

“That’s my honest opinion. Also a bad attempt to get you to behave.”

He sneered a little. “Well, I respect the underhanded attempt, so I’ll consider it.”

He was going to behave. He was going to hate himself for doing it, just like he’d hated himself for doing it every day he was stuck in this stupid (perfect, wonderful) contract – every opportunity to wreak havoc that passed him by strangled him a little – but he did it. More or less. And he’d keep doing it. He certainly wasn’t going to be any more out of control than he usually was, even though it made his skin itch like it was about to start falling off.

“She really up there crying?”

“I tried to go in, and she told me to go away.” Barbara’s lips tightened briefly and then she looked at him and shrugged.

“Hey, whose house is this? I miss the part where you gotta listen to her, too?”

“She wants her privacy.”

“Yeah, but she’s _cryin_ ’.”

“Don’t go up there, Betelgeuse, she wants to be left alone.”

“Aw, fuck that, this is dumb.”

“Betelgeuse-”

“She’s up there cryin’ and I’m down here feelin’ like shit.”

Barbara was opening her mouth again but he didn’t stick around to hear it. He did hear the cup he was holding crash onto the floor from downstairs, and a frustrated noise, but he didn’t pay too much attention. The crying was pretty distracting. The crying made him feel like he was being dragged through dirt, and not in the way he usually liked. After trying to announce himself he remembered, no talking. Not for the rest of the night, and he had at least an hour until the sun came up. Okay. He could work with this. Actions speak louder that words, that was a phrase. He’d heard that before.

Lydia was facing away from him. Curled up on her side, facing away from him, shaking. She might have known he was there, he couldn’t tell. But she was distracted. He had two options; make a sound so he didn’t scare her or figure she’d been waiting for him to follow her up. Wishful thinking maybe but he was willing to gamble. Little risk. Big pay off. Maybe. His confidence was a little shaken.

He edged around the bed, and tugged at her robe when he was close enough. It was near her feet, and yeah, she knew he was there. She didn’t even look down. She just sniffed and wiped at her face, and kept looking at the wall. This was bad. Maybe Barbara was right. Oh well, when you commit then you gotta commit. Go hard or go home.

He finished his walk around the bed, and sat down next to her on the floor, leaning against the frame. He didn’t block her view of the wall, sitting closer to to her hand than her face. He’d never wanted to apologize so badly in his life. It was a new feeling.

“I feel so stupid.”

He could use this. He could feed this part of her and watch it grow and it thrilled him thinking about it – she’d be eating out of the palm of his hand in no time. Her fortress wasn’t perfect, there was a crucial flaw in the construction, a hole was crumbling before his very eyes just begging him to chip away at it. It was exactly what he needed.

But she was crying.

He reached out a hand and wiped under her eye. She didn’t bat him away, which he though was a good sign, but she didn’t do anything else either.

Alright. Alright well, it wasn’t a step back. This was workable. All he had to do was wait, and then he could open his mouth and fix everything. Gift of gab. Simple as that. In the mean time he just had to sit there looking penitent. He could survive an hour of sitting there with her crying, if it was even an hour anymore. He could deal with that, he’d been around for a while. One little girl crying was nothing. Nothing.

Except that it wasn’t nothing, it was terrible, and she wasn’t stopping. Fifteen minutes just sitting there and he was ready to pay her to stop. Twenty minutes and he wanted to melt into the floor and thought if she hadn’t put so many restrictions on what he could and could not do with the ol’ juice he probably would be. Thirty minutes and she wasn’t so much crying as sniffling, maybe choking on it a little. She was going to make herself sick.

He couldn’t take it.

Rolling on to his knees, he put himself in her line of sight and she blinked at him with those huge brown doe eyes, all bloodshot and bleary. That was his fault. He tugged on her sleeve and tapped his mouth.

“I don’t wanna fight,” she forced out, quiet and strained. He shook his head and put his hand over his heart, and the other up in the air, and smiled as sweetly as he could manage (which he knew full well wasn’t sweet) and it had the intended effect. She laughed. Just a little. She wiped her eyes with the ball of her hand and then inhaled and nodded. “Fine. You can talk.”

He exhaled first. No reason to rush in to things, especially not if she’d been expecting a fight. He cleared this throat. “You aren’t stupid.”

She laughed. Not the kind of laugh he was looking for.

“Hey, naw, don’t do that. Listen- I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Yeah, right-”

“I didn’t. I mean I did but I didn’t. Y’know what I thought?”

“What.”

“I thought it was a hint, like ya did it on purpose, ‘cause I’m an asshole and that’s how I am. And I forget that you’re not. I wasn’t trynna… trynna take advantage.”

“I know.”

“So why ya cryin’ babes. You’re killin’ me.”

“’Cause I keep forgetting you’re an asshole, and I feel like an idiot every time.”

He heard what that meant. He heard, _I trust you and I know I shouldn’t_ , and he liked that. He liked that a lot. He was in, there as no going back, suspicions confirmed. All his hard work had paid off. She didn’t trust him that much, really, but she trusted him just enough to make progress. On the other hand there wasn’t really time to appreciate it because it was also the source of her crying, which he’d recently decided was his least favorite thing in the entire world. Bad vibe. He wasn’t a fan.

“I’m tryin’.” He lowered his voice and tugged at her sleeve again.

She nodded. She wasn’t crying anymore, but she was closing up. He kicked himself – he’d had this beautiful opening and he could have gotten his hand in there and really made some progress and here he was crouching down beside her on the floor trying to make her _feel better._ There was the obstacle. She had this weak spot, and now he knew what it was, and it really wouldn’t be hard to take advantage of. But to get to it he’d have to make her cry like that again, and he didn’t think that was something he was interested in doing.

“You put ‘em back, right?” She took a deep shaking breath, wiping her face. Practically recovered.

“What? Oh. Yeah.”

“Thanks. I… I appreciate the thought, Beej.”

“I’ll stick to dead things from now on. I hear you like them.”

She laughed, a half-bitter, half-fond bark, and he grinned. That was the sound he wanted, and he raised himself to sit on the side of the bed. “I’m sorry I shouted at you.”

“Aw, that was barely shouting.”

“I imagine you’ve had a lot of shouting directed at you.”

“Oh yeah. I’m an expert on the volume-to-anger ratio. Don’t even worry about it, Lyds. Get your face all un-puffy and come downstairs so Babs doesn’t think I’m up here makin’ it worse.”

Lydia nodded, and then before he had a chance to process she was sitting up and hugging him. Hugging. With her little head on his shoulder. Should he have just started off doing this? Could he have gotten away with it or would she have hit him? Hard to say. If there was a next time (and he frowned briefly thinking, face it, there would be, because it was him and he was an asshole) he’d just start with the hug. Nice physical contact. He put his arms around her and figured he’d let her decide when to stop it because the idea held no interest for him. She was warm and he could feel her pulse everywhere she touched, and she had him under her fucking thumb.

Stopping didn’t interest her either, apparently. Her hands gripped his shoulders, she was loose against him and if he really tried he could probably slide her right into his lap. He probably wouldn’t have to really try, even. He could just suggest. Just a little tug. She was tired and upset still and-

Knocking. Betelgeuse frowned dramatically and suddenly she was gone, scooting across the bed and trying to pull her hair back and up, facing away from him.

Barbara’s voice filtered through the door. “Lydia, honey?”

“I’m fine. I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Alright, sweetie, I just wanted to know if you wanted eggs. I’m making breakfast.”

“Thanks Barbara.”

Lydia took a deep breath. He watched her shoulders rise and took back every single nice thing he’d ever said about or thought about that meddling bitch. Barbara, shoving her nose in with her awful sense of timing. Cockblocking. Constant cockblocking. Sandworms, eggs – it just came naturally to her, she’d use whatever was at her disposal to fuck with his-

“Thanks for coming up,” Lydia said. It broke his train of thought. He floundered for a second, watching her get up and go to her bathroom. The sink started running.

“Yeah, well. I’m a nice guy.”

“You are absolutely not.”

“I’m real nice. I’m nice to me.”

“That’s true.” The sink shut off. She came out toweling her face, cold water dampening her hairline. Her eyes looked better, and she was smiling a little. “I think the word you want for that is selfish, though.”

“Hey, I just sat on the floor for like, almost an hour trynna will you to feel better.”

“Yeah, so I’d let you talk.”

“Lyds, I’m wounded. I come up here outta the goodness of my heart, ‘cause you, my wife, love of my afterlife, you’re sittin’ up here crying and feelin’ down, and you call me selfish. D’yknow how much that just goes against my character, actin’ like that? Bein’ all supportive and apologetic and shit. That was a real effort on my part.”

“Scrounging for a compliment is not helping your case.”

“Naw, but it is helping fill the void left in my cold dead heart after you said I wasn’t a nice guy.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. Something tense in his chest released and he realized it was fine She wasn’t mad at him anymore, she was back to her usual self. There’d be no more fucking crying. Goal achieved. Ten more opportunities missed, but goal achieved. She turned to walk out the bedroom door, and he waited for her on the top step and followed her down to the kitchen.

“I hope you’re not planning on shoving bugs in your face while everybody down there tries to eat regular food.”

“What am I, an animal? I will eat them one by one like a civilized person,” he scoffed, and softened it a little when she looked back at him. She was trying not to smile, and he had no excuse for how happy he was about that. Disgusting.

 


	8. Vinegar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honey works well for flies, but Betelgeuse learns vinegar works much better on Lydia.

“Babs.”

Barbara shrieked and brought her hand to her chest, falling back against the wall. Betelgeuse leaned against the attic hall window, pleased with himself. “Don’t _do_ that.”

“Yeah, whatever, I need help.”

“Why, what did you do?”

Betelgeuse grimaced and squawked incredulously, and Barbara bit back a sigh. “Nothin’! God damn. I, uh. I wanna, uh.”

“Look, I don’t have all day-”

“I wanna do somethin’ nice for Lyds. Lydia.”

Barbara blinked at him and let her mouth fall open. He stared at her almost angrily. “You want to do something nice for Lydia. And you’re asking me. To help you.”

“Did I stutter?”

“What's the angle?”

“Aw c’mon, why’s there gotta be an angle?”

Barbara raised an eyebrow, and the poltergeist huffed.

“Look, there ain’t an angle. Dunno if you noticed but the girl’s already buyin’ what I’m sellin’, Babs.”

“So you just want to do something nice like a regular person. Just because.”

He shrugged and looked at his nails. “That's what people do, right?”

Barbara weighed the pros and cons. Probably not a bad idea, on his part, to ask for help. His last attempt had ended terribly. Of course he had nowhere to start, the man had probably thought unselfishly for about five minutes throughout the course of his entire existence. And if there was an angle, which she was pretty sure there was because it was _him_ , he had a good point – Lydia was already on his team. She sighed and waived her hand dismissively, continuing on her way up the stairs. “Get rid of the mold.”

“Naw, seriously-”

“And the teeth. Get rid of the mold, clean your mouth.”

“Babs, c’mon-”

“Trust me, that’s the nicest thing you could do.”

“What’m I supposed to do, bathe in fuckin’ vinegar? Do you have any idea how long this’s been on here?”

“If you’re too much of a wimp for bleach, vinegar’s as good a place to start as any.”

Betelgeuse sighed dramatically, and was gone. Shaking her head, Barbara pushed the door open. When she entered Adam didn’t look up, but he addressed her immediately

“What did he want?”

“He said he wanted to do something nice for Lydia. I told him to lose the mold.”

“Wonder what the angle is.”

“That’s what I said.”

Adam paused suddenly, paintbrush stalled above the roof of the new schoolhouse. He looked over at Barbara. “He was alone with you in the stairwell?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Lydia let him out unsupervised? What if-”

“She needs to let him out of her sight _sometimes,_ Adam.”

Adam shook his head and turned back to the schoolhouse. “Makes me nervous is all. It's a slippery slope. Next thing you know she’ll be letting him outside the house on his own.” 

Barbara bit her tongue. “He has been behaving. You know, on the scale of things.”

“I dunno Barb, could be just a long con. He was so hell-bent on getting out, who knows what he wants out of it. I’m sure he’s not happy stuck here.”

“Well, obviously. I just don't think him wanting to get out necessarily means he's going to do something bad.” 

Adam grunted, and Barbara assumed the conversation was over. She picked up her magazine and flopped on the couch, ankles crossed on the arm, and didn't look up until Adam spoke again. “Think he’ll do it?”

“Bathe? Not likely. He looked at me like I told him to put on tutu,” Barbara started to scoff, but then stopped herself and sighed. “I don’t think he’d go that far for a scheme, so at least if he does it I’ll feel a little better. If there's an angle, he's all in.”

 

* * *

 

 

Lydia woke up before dawn. He wasn’t back yet, and it disappointed her, but he didn’t have to be so she couldn’t hold it against him. Rather than wait, she got up and went to take a shower. Knowing he wasn’t outside waiting on her (or more likely, listening), she took her time and enjoyed it.

By the time she was finished and dressed and had her blinds up the sun was well above risen and he still wasn’t around, and there was no sign he had been recently. She might have even checked all her shoes for dangerous not-gifts. Lydia’s stomach was flipping. What did that mean? Had he figured out some other way to twist her words around she hadn’t thought of, and now he just wasn’t here? Could she call him? Did the rules apply only if he heard them, or did her saying them affect him no matter where he was? Lydia tried his name three times under her breath, unsure of where to start. There was a thump from upstairs, but nothing else, and her stomach flipped again.

“You better be home and avoiding me and not out there doing… anything.” Lydia sighed and looked at her reflection in the vanity mirror. An idiot. She was looking at an idiot. Of course he had been trying to find a way out.

Charles and Delia were downstairs, alone. This struck Lydia as strange, as both the Maitlands were chronic early risers. She made her way over to the coffee machine and hoped she didn’t look as worried as she felt.

“Where’re Barb and Adam?” she asked, casting a look back over her shoulder.

Charles shrugged, not looking up from his paper. “No idea.”

Delia looked Lydia over, and then glanced around briefly. “Where’s your tag-along?”

“Dunno. Maybe they’re all doing a ghost thing.”

“Oh yes, maybe he’s eaten them for breakfast! Lydia, you can’t just _not know,_ what if he’s out there somewhere? A ghost thing? Really?” Delia blanched. Lydia avoided making eye contact as she sat down, and saw her father glance at her out of the corner of his eye as he tried to ignore everything and keep reading his paper.

“He isn’t gonna _eat them_. If he was doing anything he shouldn't be we’d have heard the screaming by now.”

Charles huffed a laugh. Delia was not amused.

“That’s not the _point._ He’s your responsibility, you need to-”

“He’s not a dog, Delia, I can’t just-”

“No, he’s worse than a dog. At least a dog is cute,” Barbara groaned, making her way into the kitchen. “Do you still keep those old towels out in the garage?”

The Deetzes collectively looked her over, soaked head to toe, and there was a long silence before Lydia stood up. “I’ll go get them.”

“Is everything okay?” Charles started, standing.

“It's fine, he's just in a bad mood,” Barbara shook her head.

“Do you need help?”

“We just need towels.”

“I've got it. You guys should stay here,” Lydia cautioned, looking at her parents before grabbing a sweater from the mud room. She heard Delia bark a laugh on her way out to the garage.

 

* * *

 

 

Walking up the stairs with an armful of towels behind Barbara, and only a few sips of coffee into the morning, it took her a moment to really process what she was looking at. Adam on the couch with his chin propped on his hand, expression unreadable and sleeves rolled up past his elbows. Water flung almost everywhere. Betelgeuse, sitting on a furniture cover on the floor, soaked to the bone and hunched over facing away from the door.

Standing in the doorway with Barbara looking at her, amused disbelief on her face, Lydia struggled not to laugh. Adam shook his head at her, and Betelgeuse didn’t turn. He sunk in a little further on himself.

“What happened?” Lydia asked, straining and failing a little to keep the amusement out of her voice.

“Somebody’s never taken a bath in his whole life,” Adam scoffed.

“Fuck you,” Betelgeuse spat.

“I got it from here, guys,” Lydia sighed and let herself smile a little. She thought her face was going to break if she didn’t.

Barbara threw the towels she was holding directly at Betelgeuse’s head as Adam lifted up and off the couch. “Good luck.”

Lydia smiled at Barbara and Adam as they passed, smiled at them whispering to each other on the way down the stairs, and then banished the expression from her face.

“You,” she said, walking over to the ghost on the floor and kicking his thigh hard. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Hey!” He squawked indignantly, struggling to get the towels Barbara had dropped on him off. Lydia dropped hers on him as well and kicked him again.

“You weren’t there in the morning, you didn’t come when I called, I had no idea where you were.”

“Ya fuckin’ harpy, I see how it is,” he spat, flailing wildly to get the cloth off him. “Here I am thinkin’ we’ve got a god damn relationship and you don’t even trust me, what the fuck-”

“Shut up,” Lydia kicked him again and he caught her ankle, but he was quiet. Royally pissed off, but quiet. The fingers on her ankle squeezed uncomfortably. She let herself smile a little bit, and his expression flickered. Embarrassment started to creep back onto his face and he huffed, letting her ankle go in favor of a towel and started rubbing himself dry. Lydia knelt down beside him to help, and he batted at her hands.

“I don't trust you. But I'm starting to, so you'll just have to deal with me being nervous for a little bit.” she said. She saw his eye flick to her from under the towel. He seemed to deflate a little, and Lydia reached out to try helping again. His hands fell away and she took over.

“If you’re not gonna call me names again you can talk.”

“I hate that you getta do that, ain’t fair.”

“You just don’t like not having the upper hand for once.”

“600 years on top is hard to get over.”

Lydia smiled and pulled the towel off his face, which looked comically sheepish and still borderline mad. She finished drying his hair and moved on to his shoulders. “You're making me dry you off on purpose, aren't you.”

“You volunteered, Jesus.”

“You can turn into a snake but you can't dry yourself off.”

“Hey, you turned down the juice, babes. You got yourself into this situation.”

“Did you really just call your ghost skills _juice_.” 

“Did you really just call them ghost skills?”

Lydia shook her head, grinning, and dropped the towels into his lap. “Whatever. Rest is all you, man.”

“Are ya sure, I’m a lotta fun to rub off.”

“God damn you.”

He chuckled to himself, and grabbed for one of many remaining dry towels. Lydia re-positioned so she sat with her legs crossed and watched. Now that the initial shock of the situation, and the huge wave of relief that had come with it, was over, it was even harder not to smile. There was not a trace of dirt to be found on him. His hair was clean, his face and neck were clean, his nails were clean. Even his clothes were clean, a consequence of the tremendous amount of water that looked like it had been dumped on him.

“So… what happened?” He looked at her like she was an idiot, so she pushed on his shoulder. “I mean with the water. Normally a bath doesn’t result in… this.”

“Apparently vinegar ain’t a good smell,” he shrugged. “And since it’s not my delicate fuckin’ senses I’m looking out for here, I had to keep checkin’ in with Mr. and Mrs. Homebody and I mighta overreacted a little and uh. Gone overboard.”

“You bathed in vinegar.”

“Bleach seemed like a bad idea.”

“And then you bathed again to get rid of the vinegar.”

He pulled a face and looked at her, “Hey, when I do a job, I do it right, okay.”

“No kidding. Thanks for looking out for my delicate senses.”

He grunted, but Lydia thought he looked a little pleased with himself.

“The sun’s gonna be out all day. You’ll probably dry faster on the porch. Just maybe give me a heads up so I can warn everybody, you are _very_ pale without all that mold. It'll be blinding.”

“Har fuckin’ har.”

Betelgeuse scrunched up one side of his face and hacked and tossed aside a towel, and then looked at her, and Lydia wasn't sure what else to say. The gesture was really sinking in, and abruptly she leaned in and hugged him. It felt strange to do it unhindered, unafraid of putting her mouth near his neck, and somehow she was glad he still smelled like wet earth. He barely hesitated returning the embrace, tightening his arms around her. When she made to get up he was reluctant to let go of her, and she didn’t think she could make eye-contact so she just got to her feet and made for the stairs.

“Yo, Lyds.”

“Yeah?” She turned at the door, hand on the frame. He wore an expression that was so ‘I am Betelgeuse and you have to deal with my bad life choices get used to it’ that it made her sigh before he even opened his mouth.

“I had to use _a lot_ of vinegar. Fair warning, but before you go around kickin’ me again, I didn’t break your stupid rules. Keep that in mind.”

Lydia furrowed her brow, and went downstairs to try and figure out exactly how much vinegar he’d used.

 


	9. Juice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get comfortable, and also a little out of hand.

After the Great Vinegar Shortage of 1997, Winter River suffered through semi-regular inexplicable item-based chaos. Entire rooms' worth of items ending up in other people’s homes, stores being rearranged, houses being turned inside out. If nobody saw him doing it, and if it didn't hurt anybody, moving objects didn't technically violate any of her rules and it didn't take very much energy on his part. She refused to admit that she was _wooed_ by the fact that the poltergeist who terrorized her as a teenager found a loophole in a carefully constructed rule because he'd stolen a lot of vinegar to bathe with for her.  That was not something she was about to own up to, but she also couldn't bring herself to stop him from having a good time - months behind whens he'd expected him to figure it out, he'd found one of her loopholes, and he found it totally on accident, and now he was like a kid trying to keep calm ina a candy store. When it got too extreme she would give him a look, and he’d understand that if he pulled whatever he’d done again he’d lose a lot of freedom, and the pranks would quiet down for a period until he started enjoying himself too much and they escalated again.

After they escalated she thought about what Juno had told her – that he was her responsibility and they were keeping an eye on them. Nothing that had happened so far could have raised her ire that much, as they’d had no contact and it had been almost half a year. She wasn’t sure what the parameters were, and it made her nervous about giving him any more room to move than she had, no matter whether or not she wanted to. She might still be a little surprised by his depth of character, but she knew if she gave him too much permission, he’d just act like himself only totally out of control, and suddenly they’d be in trouble. She didn’t even know what trouble meant. She knew she was responsible, and that if he did anything they’d both be in hot water, but who knew what that entailed. There was nothing in the handbook that said anything about these kind of contracts and he was painfully dismissive about it all. He avoided talking about anything related to Neitherworld bureaucracy if he could help it, and Lydia was usually only successful in the darkroom when he had nothing to distract himself with. 

“Well this ain’t exactly recently deceased shit, babe. Your average fresh-out-the-body spook ain’t goin’ around looking to marry. Half the time they don’t even finish the first three chapters. I mean, look at how long I stayed in business.”

“How’d you find out about it, then?”

“Insider info, used to work at Department with that cut-throat crone. Department’s fulla old dusty books nobody reads. And I mean, there’s easier ways to get back to life topside. They’ve got a reincarnation lottery, there’s symbiotic possession, there’s-”

“Wait, there’s a reincarnation lottery? Why didn’t you just do that?”

“With this body? Like I’d wanna give me up.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. She transferred another print to hang.

“And I got banned.”

“That sounds more like it. What’d you do to get banned from reincarnation?”

“Same shit I did to get banned from free-range haunting and happy hour at Faust’s. I’ve had restrictions on my license to scare ever since the French Revolution.”

Lydia looked over her shoulder. The red bounced off his face and the white on his suit and left him looking even more ghostly than normal - once it had been unnerving, but she was used to it now. “You have a license to scare? Like an actual license?”

“Hell yeah I do. Not that it's any good.” Betelgeuse rummaged in his suit pockets dropping god-knew-what on the basement floor. It took him longer than it should take to find any kind of official documentation regularly kept on one’s person, as far as Lydia was concerned.

When he handed it over there was no photo, which she thought made sense. Otherwise it was all writing, official looking blackletter title spelling LICENSE TO SCARE with aged typewriter to fill in the blanks. His name, his date of death. The restriction section looked like it was only supposed to contain four or five three letter codes, and it was nearly black with type. On top of It all, a giant VOID.

She looked at him and handed it back. “Is it really that hard to follow the rules?”

“Pfft, rules. Rules and hauntings shouldn’t go together, takes all the fun right out of it. No room for creativity. They say it’s to keep you fuckin’ breather’s finding out about the afterlife, but I don’t understand why it matters. We all end up in the same place, so what if John and Jane know it.”

“You just don’t like people telling you what to do.”

“Not unless it involves a gag and-”

“Nope. Stop.”

He laughed, a lecherous creaking noise. Lydia shook her head, and got the next piece of paper ready for a print, and he sighed and leaned back on his stool. “Anyway. Caused enough problems they made me, uh. Exclusive on demand. And then the restrictions were kinda pointless so. Here I am.”

“Stuck with me. How’d you imagine this going?”

“Thought I’d be alive again. Dunno what went wrong, pretty sure it wasn’t the fine print. I distinctly remember that book sayin’ I’d be alive if I married a living person.”

“Maybe they changed the rules.”

“Nothin’ ever changes there.”

She finished lining up the print in the enlarger and set up the exposure, and used the timer to spare a look over at him. There was no humor in that statement. He was just sitting there, looking at his nails with his brow furrowed. The timer stopped, and she turned the enlarger off and transferred her paper to the developing fluid. She cleared her throat, rocking the print back and forth.

“Not much changes when you’re alive either. It’s mostly the same thing, every day.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble, babes, but you don’t got much perspective.”

“Really though, Beej – all this stuff you can do. You’d give up – you’d give up your juice just so you can walk around breathing for another like, thirty or forty years? Even though you’d end up back where you started?”

“’Cause I’m really gettin’ good use out of the juice right now.”

Lydia ignored that. She'd moved the print all the way through to hypo clear and was finishing it off and hanging it, and she felt him shifting behind her. His rattling breath was over her shoulder as he watched her hang the print. He lowered his voice. “I’d get the juice back eventually. It’d be worth it.”

“Even if you didn’t get it back?”

“Yeah. Even if I didn’t.” He cleared his throat loudly, and she rolled her eyes. Back at regular speaking volume, he sounded too loud right next to her ear when he said, “Damn. I’m lookin’ pretty good.”

Lydia looked at the print hanging there, and the others next to it, all shots taken in town while he followed her around. She'd built a new series without realizing it - a sequel to her big break, only this time instead of two shadows lurking over Charles and Delia in a quiet house, there were three. Lydia guessed that meant he was part of the family now. “Yeah, you can see like. Almost a whole eye socket. Do you think I'd get better photos of you if you had a little more... I dunno. Juice?”

“Lyds, don't get me all excited about nothin'.”

“If I let you do your ghost thing, you know you’ll have to follow the same rules as usual, right. You can get weird but it doesn’t negate any prior behavior-based rules.”

“Don't fuck with me. You gonna turn up the juice?”

“Can I trust you with it?” She turned her head to look at him there, grinning like a demon. She should be worried about regretting it. His grin told her she should be.

She was just a little excited.

“As much as you can trust me with anything else.”

Lydia bit on the inside of her cheek to stop from grinning, and failed spectacularly. “Turn up the juice, Beej.”

He cackled shrilly, practically electric with energy – she swore the hairs on the back of her neck and arms raised up when he dashed in. His arms tightened around her and the next ten seconds were a blur. He changed in rapid progression from a snake wrapped around her to a cat to a bubbling mess of goo and ten thousand other shapes – Lydia screamed in surprise - before appearing as himself, standing back with his hands out like he was surprised and knocked off balance.

“I swear, babes, that’s never happened before.”

“I’m sure.”

“I’m outta practice.”

“Uh huh.”

As if to prove a point, he grabbed her hand and before she could scream or react in much of any way at all he spun her out to a blare of a horn section from a non-existent swing band, wearing a ridiculous dress she had not been wearing before and would never opt to wear, not waiting before spinning her back towards him and tipping her backwards. Shocked, she braced her hands on his chest.

“That’s more like it,” he grinned and kissed her with comic flare, separating with a loud smacking sound before pulling back with a shrieking laugh and disappearing.

He dropped her on the ground, but she’d been low enough to it that it didn’t hurt. Blinking on the darkroom floor and dressed to the nines, Lydia starting laughing. Work was over, there was no point. It took her a few minutes to stand and clean up, and bass had started thumping through the floor.

On her way up the stairs, Delia nearly ran in to her. She hovered at her shoulder all the way up the stairs and into the kitchen. The music only got louder and louder.

“Lydia, what did you do!”

“Let him have fun. Why, is he hurting anybody?”

“No, he-”

“Is he breaking anything?”

“Not unless you call making my sculptures-”

“Then it’s fine.

“He’s out of control!”

“He’s a little pent up, just let him get it out of his system.”

Out in the living room, the scene could have been a regular one if it was toned down about two thousand percent. It was like a special event with the Maitlands on PCP. Music ten times as loud, ten times as many household items joining in. Adam and Barbara had come down from the attic and Barbara seemed to be trying to bite back a smile while Adam yelled fruitlessly at Betelgeuse to turn down the volume, gesticulating wildly. Betelgeuse floated up near the ceiling, feigning deafness, examining his nails like he was bored. Lydia smiled at Delia, who gestured at the living room and then at Lydia's dress like she was proving a point.

Lydia shrugged, and then looked at Barbara and waived her over to dance.

The music was the most innocent thing he did all day, but all things considered he did well enough that she didn’t regret it. Sure, Delia’s dinner had become worms temporarily, and Charles’ robe had attempted to contort into a fuzzy straight jacket while he was wearing it, and he’d muted Adam, but she was satisfied she’d shot him enough dirty looks that he knew he was only getting a free pass this one day. It was, to be fair, hilarious. And innocent, mostly. And exhausting.

Lydia dragged herself up to her room and closed the door, going first to the bathroom to wipe off her face and pull on pajamas, and then she shuffled out and had to double-take. Betelgeuse was stretched out on the bed with his eyes closed, hands behind is head. 

“I figured you’d be out on the town being a pain in the ass. You’re turning into a real homebody.”

He grunted, and Lydia made her way over to the bed, trying hard not to think about the fact that it was the first time she'd gotten into bed beside him. Usually he showed up while she was asleep. Lydia switched off her bedside light, and slid under the covers. "Beej?"

"Hm."

"I think we might actually be friends."

"Lydia, I dunno how to tell you this, but we're fuckin' married," he chuckled, and Lydia grinned, and listened to his rattling breath until she drifted off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

She woke up crying, with her face pressed against something rough and humid-feeling. Fingers were combing through her hair, and it took her a moment to realize what was happening. The mortification set in pretty quickly after she did.

Lydia pried herself away from Betelgeuse's chest and turned quickly, violently, onto her other side. God, what if this had happened before? What if she’d been crying in her sleep for weeks and he’d seen all of it? Lydia inhaled through tears. He cleared his throat.

"Don't say anything."

She heard him breathe and move, but he obliged her. She guessed he had to, as she’d given him an order without really realizing - and somehow that just made her cry harder. She tried to suppress a sob and couldn't, and it was all she could do to choke into the pillow and not wake up her parents. His hand fell on her shoulder, heavy and firm, and tugged at her to turn back into him, and she couldn't bring herself to pull away. Her head tucked back against his neck and jaw like it had been before.

"I'm sorry. Say whatever you want, I didn’t mean to tell you."

He wrapped one arm around her back and the other hand found its way back to her hair, but he didn't speak. Not right away, anyway. Just some quiet shushing noises as she tried to focus on the feeling of his nails on her scalp and not the burning sensation of shame and worry that he knew what she’d been dreaming about somehow.

“Musta been some nightmare, babe."

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

"Dunno what for, little salt water ain’t gonna hurt me."

"I think I put a cleaner spot on your suit. You'd been doing such a good job getting it dirty again," she sniffed.

"Oh, shit, I take it back, we’re gettin’ a divorce."

Lydia choked on a small laugh, and he squeezed her shoulder. The silence that followed was tense, and she sighed. "It wasn't you. The nightmare."

"As if I'd care if it was about me - if anything I'm disappointed." His voice was tinged with sarcasm, though, and it made her smile. He exhaled loudly, a sound of relief, before asking, "Anybody I need to fuck up?"

"No."

"Well you just say the word, Lyds. You know me, eager to please. You wanna-"

"I don't want to talk about it anymore."

He went silent immediately, and Lydia sniffed and shifted her head so her cheek rested on his chest, trying to collect herself. No heartbeat. Of course, she didn't expect to hear a heartbeat, but she also didn't expect his lungs to sound so loud in his chest. Rattling like dry paper. Given how uncomfortably humid the rest of him seemed, it was strange to her that his breathing sounded like that. It was the first time she heard it rattling around in his chest and not just noise in the air, and easily the most prolonged contact they'd ever had. While she was awake, anyway. Cautiously, she stretched her arm over his stomach to rest her hand on his chest, too - it might have been a mistake, but fuck it. If it was a trap, she’d fallen into it weeks ago anyway.

"That's it. Let me make it better."

She closed her eyes and gripped his shirt, and knew that if he was waiting for a moment of weakness, that little inch given that said "push boundaries here", he'd found it. The nagging voice that told her life was going to get a lot harder soon was easily silenced for the moment. Lydia was pretty sure she was about to fall asleep tucked against the biggest nightmare on the face of the planet, and that ought to be enough to keep all the other bad dreams away.

"Don't leave until I wake up," she mumbled, and felt his face shift towards her.

"I like it when ya tell me to do shit I was plannin’ on doin’ anyway. Makes me really feel like we got somethin’, y’know, bein’ on the same page all the time. We got a real bond.”

“You are so full of shit,” she breathed a laugh and sniffed.

“You dig it, babes, don’t lie.”

Maybe it was because she was tired, or because she was disoriented from her nightmare, but Lydia let herself nod. Just a little. With his face so close to hers she knew he felt it, and she didn’t bother thinking too hard about how his arm around her tightened.

“Go to sleep, Lyds. I'm on it,” he said, and pressed his hand to her temple. Lydia let herself go, and she didn’t dream again.

 


	10. Repeat Offender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia gets an expected visit.

If she’d really thought about it, she’d have realized it was only a matter of time before Juno showed up. She’d have realized if they were watching her, a sudden influx of paranormal activity was kind of a red flag.

The caseworker appeared suddenly in the kitchen one morning as Lydia was making coffee. She turned around and there the woman was, smoking like always, and Lydia was so unprepared that she screamed. Betelgeuse was there a split second later, hands on her upper arms, bumping against her as she backed up, and tense. Ready to act. For a split second Lydia was distracted thinking that he was awfully strong before she got herself back together and focused on the task at hand. Absolutely not the appropriate time to be thinking about how nice a dead person's arms were. 

“It’s okay,” she gasped, and patted one of his definitely not-nice hands. Lydia exhaled a "Jesus" as she recovered from the scare.

He didn’t move them. She was kind of glad. “Naw, Juno.”

Juno beat her to the eye-roll and ended it with a withering look at him, and Lydia felt him fight the urge to retreat. “She knows who I am, jackass. Now, what have you two been getting up to?”

“Well,” he started, moving an arm to loop around her shoulder and stand beside her, pulling her tight against his side. “We just got back from our honeymoon, and we’ve almost got a down payment ready for a house. I think uh, up next it’s probably workin’ on those two-point-three kids and then what, college savings? That right pumpkin?”

“Beej,” Lydia sighed and looked at him. Betelgeuse dropped his smooth-talking attitude and turned frenetic and aggressive.

“What? It was a loaded question, she knows exactly what we been up to and she’s here to tell you off for not treatin’ me like a prisoner. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Juno looked unimpressed, and Lydia didn’t fail to notice the hand next to her throat was clenching into a fist. She looked up at him. “Maybe you oughta bug Barbara.”

“Lyds, you don’t-”

He stopped abruptly, tearing his glare from Juno and looking at Lydia instead. She offered him a small smile and a quiet _It’s fine_ and she saw his jaw clench, and then he was gone. She sighed and looked at Juno.

“Sorry.”

“Hell, at least he listened. That’s more than I ever managed with him.” She shook her head, and then took a deep drag on the cigarette and cast her baleful stare at Lydia. “I guess you know why I’m here.”

“Honestly? I’m surprised you haven’t show up before. He’s been going outside at night without a babysitter.”

“I know. It was starting to worry me, how quiet it’s been. But this, I think deserves an in-person call. Just to make sure everything’s fine and he didn’t manipulate the situation to get what he wants.”

“He didn’t. It was a reward for behaving and if he fucks up I’ll take his powers away. Again.”

“Of course, of course. Just making sure that was the case and you weren’t possessed and off our radar. And to reiterate that it’s very, very important you keep him under thumb.”

“I know.”

“It’s bad enough that he’s been interacting with the world as it is. If he gets out of control outside this house now that he’s got that power, Winter River will become a paranormal hot spot in no time flat, attracting attention from all over the world, and we can’t have that happening. Especially not with him. He’s gotten into that kind of trouble before, but that was years ago – no TV then. Who knows what he’d do with all that encouragement. The situation would turn to shit faster than you could say ‘stop’ in earshot. Miss Deetz, it’s very-”

“Important that he doesn’t cause any problems. I got it.”

Juno grimaced and lit another cigarette. “It’s not just for the sake of the living. Imagine if he sticks his nose somewhere it doesn’t belong and somebody calls in a professional. Even functioning unfettered, he’s not immune to a talented exorcist. And your hosts definitely aren’t.”

Lydia tightened her lips. Juno cast a look at her that said _didn’t think of that, did you_ , and continued. “Self preservation never was a strong skill with him. He’s a repeat offender.”

“I’ll make sure he’s on his best behavior.”

Juno nodded, looking her over. “You’ve been doing a good job. I hope it keeps going well for you.”

She turned away, and Lydia swallowed. “Wait. Wait, I have a question.”

“Make it quick.”

“He said when he read about the rule, the marriage rule, he said he thought he read that it’d bring him back to life.”

“And you want to know why it didn’t.”

“Yeah.”

“The same reason anything goes wrong in the Neitherworld: a technicality. It’s an old rule, marriage means a lot of things. The Department has different ways-”

“What was the technicality?”

“You didn’t want to.”

The next question died on Lydia’s lips. Juno was gone, and Lydia stood alone in the kitchen. Her stomach felt like it was made of lead. She turned back to the coffee machine, and tried to will her hand to pour it steadily, which didn’t work. It was too early for this shit, she thought to herself. Too early to be scared by strange ghosts, too early to feel vaguely guilty about things she absolutely shouldn't feel guilty about, too early to parse out why Juno would be talking to her about exorcists-

“You’ve been letting him out of the house, huh.”

Lydia turned, and saw her father standing in the doorway. He looked unimpressed in that way he often was, and even though it wasn't an angry expression, Lydia felt like a little girl when he looked that way.

“Coffee’s ready,” she offered weakly, and sat down on a bar stool. Charles entered the kitchen, nonchalant, and got himself a mug.

“We heard you scream,” he offered, and sat down beside her. “Well. I heard. Delia’s still out cold.”

“So you came down and heard the whole thing.”

Charles nodded and took a drink. Lydia was still just looking at her mug, and she had to gather the will to look at him instead. He was looking back fondly. When she spoke she tried to smile, but her voice was too soft.

“If I tell him to stay home right after he got all that freedom back it’ll hurt him, and if I let him stay out he might hurt himself.”

“You’re in a bit of a pickle,” he said.

“I’ve been acting like an idiot.”

“No, you’ve been acting like you care. You’re a warm person, Lydia, it comes naturally to you. You always have been, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I was never very good at it.”

“So far it hasn't done much for me. What would you do?”

“Your situation is a little outside my area of expertise, sweet pea.”

Lydia looked down at her coffee and felt weirdly disappointed, until Charles cleared his throat. She looked back at him, and saw him examining his palms.

“I’ll tell you a story about your mom, though. You remember her favorite place? And to get out there there were all those rocks.”

“And you could only go at low tide. We got stuck out in that cove all day.”

“Right, right. You were eight, you got so sunburned," Charles laughed, and Lydia smiled. "It was a challenge to get out there even before… everything. Really exhausting, especially with a little kid. And you know, even when she started getting tired, she still wanted to go. It got to be when she’d go out, she’d come back and get even sicker because she just wiped herself out, and I remember thinking one day I ought to put my foot down. No more trips out to the coast. I almost told her that. And right when I was about to, I thought of her face every time she went out out, and how happy it made her, and how there weren’t many things that made her that happy. I knew it was bad for her, and it was exhausting her, and she could get really hurt. But if I took that place away from her it would have broken her heart, and I couldn’t do it.”

“She never ended up getting hurt.”

“No. But she could have, and we would have lost her even sooner.”

Lydia nodded, and looked back at her coffee.

“You’ll figure it out. Besides. Might not ever come up.”

 

* * *

 

 

She didn’t spend too long downstairs, but it was long enough. He wasn’t in the attic when she’d gone to get him. Barbara reported that he'd been violently angry when he came upstairs and then worked himself into a state of panic thinly masked by venom and then left.

“He was worried Juno was trying to turn you against him,” she offered.

“What an idiot,” Lydia sighed, and sat down on the couch. Adam huffed a laugh, which she ignored. “Where’d he go?”

“I dunno, he just disappeared. With his powers back he could be anywhere.”

“Maybe he’s back in the model,” Adam suggested.

“If he’s trying to avoid me, that’s probably the last place he’d go, because it’s the first place I’d check.”

“You could always just. Shout and tell him to come here, right? He’s gotta be in the house.” Barbara sat beside her.

“No, it’s fine. If he wants to freak himself out alone, he can.”

“What _did_ Juno want? Are you in trouble?”

“She was just checking in, like she said she would.” Lydia sighed and leaned into Barbara. “I wish this shit would stop happening first thing in the morning. I’m already tired.”

 

* * *

 

 

She was woken up in the middle of the night by a tugging on her foot. One bleary eye opened and she saw him sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed.

“Where were you all day?” she asked, stretching.

“Around. How’d it go with cut-throat?”

“Fine. She was just making sure I wasn’t possessed.”

He snorted, and flattened the blanket over her foot.

“So where were you?”

“Porch.”

“I looked out there, though.”

“No rule about me not bein’ seen.”

“True.” Lydia nudged his ankle with her toes. He flattened the wrinkles that formed there. “She wasn’t trying to turn me against you, you know.”

“Sure you didn’t see reason?”

“Nope. I’m fleeced. I have been thoroughly deceived and smooth-talked into giving you free reign.”

“She say that?”

“I was joking.”

He frowned. Lydia sighed and sat up.

“Okay, no jokes. What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you it’s okay? Because it is. Everything’s fine. I promise.”

“I worked with that bitch for a hundred fuckin’ years, Lydia, she doesn’t just come around for no reason. You’re lying.”

He said it abruptly and without venom, but the seriousness of his tone was enough to make her feel small. She tried to keep it out of her voice.

“I’m not. Everything _is_ fine. She just… she was just reminding me to watch you. She’s afraid if you get out of hand people will find out about you and flood the town with, I don't know, ghost hunters or something and we could get into trouble.”

“You gonna reign me in?”

“I already told you I didn’t see reason. We’re on the same team. Truce, remember? I got your back.”

“Well, you better. You see my response time gettin’ down there after you screamed? Built in security system, right here.”

“It was impressive.”

“Oh yeah? Tell me more.” A sleazy grin split his face.

“I dunno, I don’t think I want you getting that full of yourself yet.”

“Yeah, better wait until this,” he said, and shoved his hands into his pockets. Lydia sighed, half expecting him to pull out rats and snakes. He just kept rummaging until he found what he was looking for and pulled it out, concealed in his fist. Palm sized. Lydia immediately gave him a look. “I made it, Jesus Christ. Hold out your hand.”

“You made it.”

“Yeah, I got the juice I can do whatever I want, just hold out your fuckin' hand already. Makin' me jump through hoops to give you a goddamn present.”

Lydia felt like she was going to regret it but she followed his instructions. His knuckles touched her palm, and then his nails scraped her skin and all that was left was cold metal. Red-gemmed and beetle shaped. Lydia shook her head.

“This is cheesy. This is really cheesy.”

“Oh, well I can take it back.”

Lydia snatched it away and swatted at the hand he raised. She grinned even though his face was turning smug. “You thought Juno was gonna turn me against you and you were gonna win me back with spooky arts and crafts.”

“It woulda worked too.”

“It woulda. Thanks, Beej.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Since I can’t steal shit from dead people for you I might as well, right.”

“This is better.”

“Agree to disagree.”

Lydia smiled, letting her fingers curl around the necklace in her hand. “Sure. You gonna go have fun?”

“Me, have fun?”

“Stupid question. Be careful while you do it, okay. I don’t want you… doing something that means you don’t come back.”

His face fell. “You lift a rule when I wasn’t lookin’? Do you – is this chick-speak, do you want me to stay here-”

“I just want you to keep a low profile. That’s all. Juno was talking about exorcisms and I figure that’s not the kind of thing you’d bring up unless there was a risk, so-”

“Babe. Nobody’s gonna fuck with the Ghost with the Most, okay.”

Lydia nodded, and wasn’t sure how else to move forward. Thinking about it all day, every conversation led here. There was no way Betelgeuse was going to think anybody, dead or alive, could pose any danger to him. And maybe it was true. Maybe Juno was over-cautious. But the more Lydia thought about it the more it terrified her, and she didn’t know how to make him understand. She could say it, she supposed – tell him that he needed to be careful for her, because she was scared. But she didn’t feel capable of letting that card drop yet, so all she did was nod.

“I’m, uh. I’m not feelin’ goin’ out. You wanna come watch infomercials and we’ll do a shot any time somebody over-dramatically fumbles a basic life skill or what.”

Lydia laughed, “You’ll get all pissy when I don’t do any shots and I just fall asleep.”

“Fair point.”

“We could watch Hellraiser again, though.”

“Mindless violence while you take a nap, I can get behind. Hop up.”

“What?”

Betelgeuse turned on the bed dramatically, stretching in an exaggerated motion. She pulled the chain in her hand over her neck and felt the beetle hang much heavier than it had felt in her palm, and watched him wave his arms and face away from her.

“I know I’ve brought this up before, but you are super terrible at charades.”

“Hop up, get on my back, arms around my neck, I don’t know how else to say it to you. Do you need picture instructions, Christ.”

Rolling her eyes, Lydia got up and looped her arms around his shoulders and let him left her off the bed and onto his back. “What’s this for?”

“No creaking floorboards goin’ downstairs, no nosy Maitlands breakin’ it up early with their stink-eye.”

“You could just like. Juice us down there.”

“What’s more fun, juicing or floating?”

“Juicing makes me feel like I wanna puke, so-”

“Well when you put it that way.”

“Oh, knock it off.” She swatted his chest, and clung tighter as he lifted up off the ground, chuckling to himself.

 

 


	11. Guising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia takes her ghostly baggage to New York for Halloween, and things get heavy.

The rest of summer was spent reading on the porch, sometimes stretched out on a chair with her feet propped on her tag-along’s shoulders, sometimes alone. She developed film in the basement and could admit she was excited to show the new series she'd not yet titled to her agent. The poltergeist showed up a lot better on film than her house-ghosts. She was close to getting his face half-way to clearly developed.

Fall came and as it started getting colder, she started getting antsy. She could handle winter there, she normally liked it, but what it meant now was that she’d have to consider what she was going to do with Betelgeuse. If his mischief stayed at its current level, he’d do fine in the city, but if it got any wilder (as she suspected it would because that was an awful lot of temptation to resist) there would be some problems. And she’d have other people – people who didn’t have house ghosts, who didn’t have the experience she did – to socialize with, who she definitely couldn’t let him around. Not to mention an even smaller place to live. She'd be the first to admit that he was a lot different on a day to day basis than she expected him to be, but he was still  _him_. He’d be jealous, and pent up, and probably unpredictable. If she left him in Winter River, he’d probably be the same, only she wouldn’t be there to deal with it.

And at this point, she could admit she’d probably miss him.

“I wanna do something for Halloween,” she blurted. He chuckled from his spot on the porch beside her – lounging in the sun, apparently unaffected by the crisp air. Lydia pulled her sweater tighter around herself just looking at him.

“Yer a little old for trick’r’treating, babes. Unless you’re talkin’ about a party, which, in case you missed it, this ain’t really a party town and I’m under strict no fun rules.”

“Well, if you want even _less_ fun-”

“I mean, very practical responsible but fair rules. Did I say no fun? Gee.”

Lydia laughed and nudged him with her foot. “My friends in New York throw a big party every year. I was thinking of going.”

“Well, have fun. I’ll be just fine here with Adam and Barbara,” he sniffed, affecting a sullen pout she knew was only half-exaggeration at its core.

“As if I’d leave you here to torture them.”

He sat up, hinged at his hips, and looked at her. “Y’know I’m gonna be a pain in the ass followin’ you around all unseen at a party, right.”

“It’s Halloween. I don’t care if people see you or not.”

“I'm gonna be a big pain in the ass.”

“I’m prepared to deal with that. If you aren’t that much of a pain I might even let you out to roam around unsupervised.”

“This is your best plan ever, Lyds. Honestly, hands down, just a beautiful plan. Work of art. This is the Mona Lisa of plans. The Venus de Milo of plans.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“So how’re you gonna explain me? Y’know, you leave for a year to the middle of nowhere, come back with my wildly handsome self, where’d I come from, what’s my story. Yer friends are gonna ask.”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”

“You gotta get better at this long term planning thing. You artist types, I swear to Christ.”

She shoved his chest with her foot until he was back on the ground.

 

* * *

 

 

“I dunno if you remember a couple days ago when I told you you needed to get better at long term planning, but this is a fuckin’ example of what I was talkin’ about.”

“What, it’s the truth!”

“Babe. Honey. Sugarplum. Love of my afterlife. The truth is not the primary concern, here.”

“Knock it off. Trust me on this one, okay, I’ve thought it through.”

“Have ya really,” he said, face hugely skeptical. She looped her arm through his and smiled up at him.

“I’ve kept tabs on you for eight months, _honey_ , I think I can figure this out.”

“Is that a challenge? ‘Cause I been lettin’ you do that.”

Lydia barked a laugh, and stopped him when they reached the address. Same as every other year. This was the latest she’d ever arrived, though, and she hadn’t realized in the past exactly how loud it had gotten. She turned to him and tugged at his lapel to get him to look at her – he was distracted, energy wild, and she worried (not for the first time) that this was a mistake.

“You remember the rules.”

“Yeah, yup. Got it.”

“Please don’t make me regret this.”

“Babes, would I ever. Wait, wait wait.”

“What?”

Lydia felt her clothing change around her only to look down and see a whole fabric store’s worth of familiar red tulle. The lapel in her hand was thick maroon. She recognized the outfits, and was distracted from the shock by the realization that they were on a crowded street and that anybody could have seen that. He was just grinning like a sleazy lunatic.

“ _Beej_.”

“Aw c’mawn, nobody saw.”

“This is-”

“A couple’s costume, I’m a hack, I know. Oh, hey, final touch.” 

Lydia stood back on her heel and crossed her arms across her chest, staring up at him with her brow raised as he searched through his pockets. Passers-by were shocked by the snakes falling out of his pockets. Lydia was amused realizing it felt normal to her, now. Betelgeuse snickered at a rushed _ohmygod_ from a woman dressed as Raggedy Anne who narrowly avoided a handful of sand and bugs thrown on the sidewalk at her feet as she passed, before grinning and holding his goal out in front of him.

“Oh fuck you, I put that in the trash,” Lydia scoffed as he held up The Ring.

“You think I'm afraid of a little trash?”

She rolled her eyes, and took it from him and put it on her finger. He was sliding a ring on too and throwing her a look.

“You roll your eyes so much I’m surprised they don’t get stuck back there.”

“I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t such a smart-ass.”

“Flattery, babe. Gets you everywhere.”

Lydia rolled her eyes again, purposefully dramatic as he laughed, and took his hand and led him up the stairs. When she opened the door, they were immediately surrounded by other people. Her stomach was churning – maybe this wasn’t a great idea. Maybe she hadn’t thought it through all the way. Was there still time to work out a new story? This was the simplest one, the only one she thought she was unlikely to botch when she was inevitably going to be drunk in four hours and talking with people she hadn’t seen in eight months-

“Deetz!”

Lydia stopped her blind search through the crowd, and checked behind her briefly to make sure he hadn’t left her holding his hand and nothing else because _that_ seemed like a very Betelgeuse move (he hadn’t, he was still attached), before turning and smiling at the owner of the voice. Ginger ran up to her and hugged her, half-shrieking, all excited movement, and Lydia laughed.

“Oh my god _Lydia_ , I didn’t think you’d come. Where have you been? Who the fuck is this?”

Betelgeuse’s hand shot out from behind her, and Ginger shook it, clearly unsure of the situation and dubious of the owner. “Hey, how ya doin’.”

“Ginger, this is BJ. He’s my husband.”

She looked at her with a mix of shock and surprise she was trying and failing to mask with her earlier excitement as Betelgeuse shook her hand emphatically. Lydia smiled and shrugged, and Ginger redoubled her efforts to both smile at the man shaking her hand and separate her fingers from his.

 

* * *

 

 

“You didn’t even _tell_ me, you didn’t even call. Jacques is gonna be so mad at you,” Ginger shook her head, finishing off another martini.

“It was kind of an unplanned thing,” Lydia shrugged.

“I’ll say. God, Lydia. I don’t… I mean, is he funny?”

“That’s his one redeeming feature. Well. His hands are pretty nice.”

“Did he just-”

“Yes. Yes he did.”

Ginger balked from where they stood, watching Betelgeuse sneak a man’s wallet from his back pocket. Lydia sighed.

“Don’t worry, he'll get it back.”

“Where’d you even find him?”

“Winter River.”

“I know, but where’d he come from?

“Who knows. He’s a factory reject. I’m pretty sure he just popped into the world like this.” Probably not too far off from the truth, Lydia thought, watching him lean heavily on another attendee before slipping the first man’s wallet into the other’s pocket. Anybody looking too closely would have seen a hand, bodyless, drift down to the unwitting thief’s ass and squeeze long after Betelgeuse walked away – the stranger turned to the man with the missing wallet and began shoving. Ginger had already moved on to trying to catch Lydia up with current events over the sound of the party, and didn't notice any of it. 

Lydia expect him to run off after she’d made the rounds, and had given him permission to. Go to a few bars, a few strip clubs, fuck a few whores. That all seemed like something he’d be likely to do. She didn’t expect him to stay, usually within a five-foot radius of her. She didn’t expect him to socialize, telling increasingly wild stories and winning her artsy pretentious social circle over one by one. She didn’t expect to be sitting on his thigh with his arm around her waist, drinking, and she didn’t expect to be thinking about how fucking huge his hand was on her or how he really did have very nice hands and how strong his arms were. She didn’t expect to dance with him, or that he even could, and she didn’t expect drunkenly stumbling down the street with Ginger and a few others with her arm around him, or watching him eat real food that wasn’t made of insects, or saying goodbye to her friends only to hear him say "So what now, babes". She certainly didn’t expect their sudden disappearance from a bar as she complained about being tired, or to drop several feet from the air onto the hotel bed as he cackled beside her. She shrieked and then laughed, and swatted at him.

“We didn’t _pay_ for those drinks,” she laughed.

“Oh darn I forgot,” he offered.

“Rude.”

“I know, I can’t help myself. It comes so naturally.”

“Y’know what you could do to make it up to me.”

“What’s that.”

Lydia lifted a foot into the air and gestured, wiggling her foot and hoping he’d take the hint. He blinked at her.

“You want me to lick that, or-”

“Shoes, Beej.”

He groaned dramatically, and suddenly he was at the foot of the bed, unlacing her boots. Lydia grinned, flopping bonelessly on the bed.

“How come you can do that and Barb and Adam can’t? Pop around like that.”

“Ghost with the Most.”

“The most ego ever. You did it before you got your juice back, seriously. What’s the difference?”

“Barb and Adam’s house ghosts. I mean, they could probably figure it out if they had a little imagination,” he scoffed, letting a boot drop carelessly to the ground and starting on the other. “Poltergeists have more fun. Kinda like blonds.”

“You just have all the fun then, huh.”

He grunted, and Lydia felt his fingers lingering on her foot after the other boot dropped to the ground. His thumb pressed against a pulse in her ankle and she felt it throbbing there, before running down around the to the underside of her foot to press briefly against the arch. She spared a look down at him and saw him staring at it, frowning.

“What’s with the face?”Lydia propped herself up on her elbows, raising her eyebrows. Betelgeuse glanced up to her with one of his brows up to match.

“Unless you got a good reason for your one and only lookin’ like this, only time anybody’s gonna see me is Halloween. And in the meantime you're done for gettin' your freak on unless you get divorced or you cheat on your absent man.”

“I’m not the cheating type,” Lydia sighed. “And a little room in a relationship never hurt anybody. We both like our freedom.”

“That’s a lotta freedom. I ain’t ever gonna go to any a your fancy art shit, no social-”

“Nobody’s gonna bat an eye, I don’t even invite my parents to shit. This really isn’t that weird, I mean – look, I told Ginger that we got married eight months ago and she played at hurt feelings I hadn't told her but she was over it in like, two seconds. The whole thing is very _me_. I’ll just tell them you travel for business a lot, it’ll be fine-”

“Yer wastin’ time,” he snapped. Lydia felt the pressure from his thumbs increase briefly, before he relaxed himself and softened his voice again. “Life’s real short. You’re throwin’ a lotta shit away before you even get a chance to experience it, alright, you gotta-”

“I don’t think you get to tell me if I’m wasting it,” she said, and watched him close his mouth slowly. “The reason I’m even here in the first place is because you didn’t have a problem manipulating a teenage girl into marrying you so you could get what you wanted, and didn’t bother reading the fine print. You put me in this situation, so if you feel like my time’s getting wasted it’s your fault, and you don’t get to pin feeling guilty about that on me. Now I'm making this choice _for myself_. I’m sorry you grew emotions out of nowhere, but that’s not fair for you to do.”

He was frowning intensely at her foot in his hand. She thought about letting him stew there for a few minutes, but thought that was tempting fate. She was lucky he hadn’t thrown a tantrum.

“I don’t feel like I’m wasting anything. I feel like I’ve had a better time with you tonight than anybody else I’ve ever gone to that fucking party with, and telling people I’m married is gonna get me out of a lot of awkward dating bullshit I’m not interested in doing. Been there, done that, over it. So I guess what I’m saying is you need to get over whatever you’ve got going on here, ‘cause I’m not wasting time, I’m prioritizing, and if you think it’s anything different it’s just because we’re really different people.”

“Prioritizin’, huh.”

“Yeah. Prioritizing enjoying myself. That’s something you know a lot about, right?”

“I am an expert hedonist.”

“I hope you weren’t too bored hanging around with a bunch of breathers, then. We don’t have your breadth of experience.” He laughed, and she saw the same look cross his face as she had the first time out in Winter River, under the sun. She didn’t let herself linger on it too long – the evening was already threatening to collapse under the mood he’d brought on. “Guess it kinda fits.”

“What fits, babes.”

“Halloween. Ghosts coming back to have a night back on earth.”

“Thematically appropriate.”

“Yeah. The next step is passing the fuck out. You ready for that?”

Her foot was back on the bed in seconds, and he was stretched out beside her with his hands on his stomach, big silver coins on his eyes. Lydia grinned and lifted one, only to find his eye open and looking at her.

“600 years ahead of ya, babe.”

“Beej.”

“Lyds.”

“Take your shoes off.”

“You got some foot thing I should know about?”

“Yeah, I have a thing about my feet not getting smashed by shoes in the middle of the night.”

“Kinky.”

Lydia laughed as snapped his fingers and his shoes joined hers on the floor. She busied herself pulling off her jewelry and dress and tights, leaving on only her slip. Pajamas were overrated, she decided. Instead she just shoved at him until he moved, and pulled back the covers and patted the bed beside her.

“Oh shit, under the covers? Real kinky.”

“You bring out the best in me."

"Shucks. Shit, did I tell you my safe word?"

She slapped at his arm because she couldn’t think of anything else to say and he chuckled, and when he’d settled and stopped fidgeting she tugged the blankets back up. The lights were shut off without having to ask him to do it, and when she lay back and her arm brushed against his she realized the suit jacket was gone too. The sleeves on his shirt were considerably softer. He was silent beside her and tense, like he was waiting for something. Lydia had a list of things she thought it could be, but what she hoped it was, was him waiting for her to put her head on his shoulder. Lydia could admit she was tempted, but she wasn’t going to budge first. She stayed on her back, and looked at the ceiling until she felt him staring at her, and then looked at him calmly.

His brow was furrowed. She could barely see his face in the dark, but she saw enough to know that. She stretched out her fingers which brushed against his wrist, and let herself smile at him a little. The tension that had been so slight in his arm increased, like he was getting ready to lunge, and he finally cursed under his breath and flopped dramatically towards her, arranging himself half-over her like he was mad about it as she looped her arm over his shoulders.

“I’m just here to get closer to your tits, okay.”

Lydia grinned pat. “Like hell, I’m gonna tell Barb and Adam you cuddled up to me and got _all emotional -”_

He put his hand over her mouth and she grinned wider. “Fuck, you sound like me. I’m a bad influence on you.”

Lydia shook her head no emphatically, and he patted her cheek a little before moving his hand back to her shoulder.

“Kiss-ass.”

He adjusted again, and this time she knew it was to get his ear as close to her heart as possible, and her stomach sank a little. This was going to be the worst part. If he was at least at peace with his situation, it would be easier. Barbara and Adam weren’t happy to be dead but they weren’t trying to escape it, either. It had started hurting her a little to see him pine after life – it had been happening less and less as he adjusted to his new circumstances and she anticipated (hoped) that soon she’d be having to contend with his urge to fuck with people, but right now that wasn’t what she was having to deal with. He was in a mood, and she almost regretted having them come back to the hotel room. If they’d stayed out she could have avoided this weird emotional come-down from eight hours spent as a regular person in a life he no longer had full access too. She wondered if it was starting to sink in for him that it wasn’t possible. He could live vicariously through her, and getting to feel the sun and hear her heartbeat was about as close to living as he was ever going to get again.

Her arm ended up cradling his head to her chest, and her other hand found a place on his bicep as he listened. She wondered what Juno would say, if she could see this. She wondered if Juno knew this was what he’d been trying to get at, and if she had, Lydia wondered what the big deal was.

This, she realized, was the perfect time to ask a question that had been nagging at her since she met him. He’d tell her, she knew he would. He was already thinking about it, he was sensitive and it’d just spill out. God, maybe he was rubbing off on her - what manipulative timing. She brushed his hair back flat against his scalp and he exhaled deeply, and it sounded almost like a purr.

“Hey, Beej?”

He grunted. She swallowed and shifted the hand she'd left on his arm to the hand he'd placed over her shoulder, and grasped. His forehead flexed as he furrowed his brow and she felt it against her jaw, but he let go of her shoulder to grasp her fingers instead.

“What – How. How did you die?”

He didn’t tense, but she felt like the temperature dropped about ten degrees. His voice was just as cold. “If I tell you, you gonna tell me what you cry about when you're sleepin'?”

“Sure. Yeah.”

“What, really?”

“Yeah.” Then we’ll both have a sharp knife to turn on each other, Lydia thought, busying herself with stroking his hair. It was surprisingly soft and fine, and she focused on it instead of how he was definitely warming up again. He was considering and she felt his nails scrape against her shoulder, rattling breath exhaled slowly on her neck.

“I hanged myself.” The words carried out of his mouth abruptly, so gruff she thought he’d just growled quietly before she processed what he said. “I tried to, anyway. I fucked it up and suffocated, which I guess is what you get for tryin’ something like that drunk. Fuckin’ serves me right for bein’ such an idiot over a goddamn woman. Botched the whole thing right to hell. Funny thing is I don't remember too good why I did it anymore, y'know. Maybe she left me. Maybe we had a fight. Maybe she didn't do jack shit and I was just bein' dramatic. I dunno.”

Lydia knew the image in her head wasn’t accurate to how it must have happened, because she couldn’t imagine him looking any other way than he did now and he died centuries ago, but it was terrible anyway. The thought of him just… hanging there, dangling, regretting the choice the second he made it. Feeling his nails bite into her fingers, she realized how tightly she’d been squeezing his hand. She fought the urge to apologize, or say anything at all. He didn't want her to apologize - he was digging his claws in to tell her it was her turn to bare her throat.

“My mom died when I was a kid. I visited her in the hospital before, but I wasn’t there when it happened, and I have dreams sometimes that she calls me and she’s crying and asking me where I was. And that’s what I was dreaming about.”

“How old were you.”

“Ten. Old enough to know what was happening. Dad and I – we went to get food, and my grandparents stayed with her, and when we got back she was gone. It happened so fast. I know she wouldn’t be mad. I don’t even think she was awake, and I said goodbye, but I still… Have problems.”

Part of her had hoped he’d laugh at her. He didn’t, and she didn’t know what to do with that so she just kept petting his hair. It was becoming increasingly obvious that she wasn’t going to sleep. Instead she was just going to listen to his breath rattle and wonder how they’d gotten to this place where she was cradling a sadistic pervert who had once tried to kill her family against her chest and while he listened to her heart beating and they traded the worst days of their lives. She wondered what the woman he'd killed himself over was like. She wondered what her life would have been like if they'd met other under circumstances. He was apparently thinking along similar lines.

He pried his ear away from her chest and slipped an arm under her, rolling her on her side towards him. She let it happen, let him loop both arms around her and let his nails press against her back, let him fit his mouth in the hollow of her neck while she kept an arm cradled around his skull and let the other rub his shoulders. When he spoke it was quiet hand half-muffled between her throat and the pillow.

“Lydia.”

She swallowed. Everything was _a lot_ – he never said her name like that and it made everything come crashing down on her. What was she doing? What had tonight even been? She tried to say “yes” but couldn’t form her mouth around the word, so she just nodded.

“We woulda made a pretty good team.”

Lydia nodded again and squeezed around his shoulders.

 

* * *

 

 

The next day she let him out on a longer leash than she knew she should have. But New York was huge and he wasn’t going to get caught in the way that he could have in Winter River. No physical injuries, no theft, he couldn’t follow her, and he had to be back by the time they left the next morning. She’d also told him to keep the mischief to a minimum, and she knew that was vague, but she didn’t care. Maybe that was too close to trust but she absolutely wasn't going to spend more time thinking about it because it was depressing. She had other things to think about – real living humans to socialize with. Real living humans who were hyper-focused on the one thing she didn’t want to think about.

Ginger lowered her sunglasses at the waiter passing by the table. “See, that’s what I expected. Something like that. An ass like a work of art. And then you show up with… I don’t know what you’d even call that. Essence de Car Salesman.”

Lydia laughed a little and jabbed at her food. “I hope you weren’t too disappointed.”

“God, no, he was a _riot_. At first I thought you were joking. I mean, he ain’t what I expected, but he is fun. I see the appeal. Lotta charisma. Lotta energy.” Ginger bounced her eyebrows suggestively.

“He can get a little wild.” Lydia scoffed a little and shoved a piece of pancake into her mouth. She knew what she looked like. She’d gotten no sleep. Ginger didn’t have to know it was because she stayed up all night trading sad life stories with a poltergeist.

“I bet. Some costume too. You oughta bring him back around, we’re doing a New Year’s-”

“I dunno, he works a lot. I don’t think he’ll be in town.”

“Aw, that’s a shame. What’s he do?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Man, Lydia,” Ginger said. Her voice was quiet and serious and Lydia looked up to find her staring as if she was shocked. “How long you two been married? Eight months?”

More like nine years, Lydia thought. “Yeah, but he’s gone a lot, so I haven’t spent much time with him.”

“And you known him how long?”

“About eight months.”

“Lydia, honey.”

“It was a real whirl-wind thing.”

“You’re tellin' me. And you don’t even know what he does? What if he’s a criminal or somethin’?”

“Like the kind of guy who picks pockets?”

Ginger shook her head and covered her eyes briefly. “Lydia.”

“I don’t think I care. I mean – I mean at first I thought maybe it was a mistake, like it just seemed like a good idea at the time, you’ know? We get along great, when we’re together, and it used to be as soon as he wasn’t here I’d start wondering what I was doing. Like I barely know him still, and he’s… He’s a lot, and he's probably up to no good. So I made this gut decision and I kept second guessing myself, I don’t think I made a mistake now, I think...”

Lydia blinked at her breakfast and thought about what she was saying. Ginger didn’t have context. If she said what she was about to say out loud and looked up, Ginger wouldn’t be making the face Barbara would have made. She didn’t have to say it to him but she could get it off her chest because now that she was thinking about it it was true. True and awful, and she was smiling anyway . She looked up at Ginger, who was looking at her like she was _so happy for her_.

“I don't really give a fuck. I’m just happy with him.”

“Aw, sweetie. You’re gonna make me cry,” Ginger laughed and reached across the table to grasp her forearm. “Look at you, look at your face. I ain’t never seen you like this. You’re an idiot but you’re so cute.”

Lydia smiled and looked back down at her food.

Breakfast didn’t last long and then they were out on the street. Ginger was always fun to be around, always distracting. She was a dancer and they'd met at a photo shoot, and she didn't know how to turn the stage version of herself off. She was naturally photogenic, always willing to stop for Lydia to photograph her, and enthusiastic about everything she saw.  Of course while they were out, Lydia thought she saw him a few times, and she heard his gravelly, smug voice saying _I didn’t follow you, babes, I ran in to you_ every time it happened. She was able to take her mind off him just enough to enjoy herself, but the day went too fast. Suddenly she was back at the hotel, half-drunk from the bar they went to, and decided she was wholly too drunk to watch the news, which she’d intended to do in the off chance he had done something catastrophic. Maybe Lady Liberty had started crying blood. She’d never know. She fell asleep, still dressed. At some point in the night she woke briefly to hear a familiar drawl saying “Babe, we gotta move here, this place is great,” before murmuring an agreement, and falling back asleep.

 

 


	12. Paranormal America

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Escalation in pastel, as things go from zero to ten.

Winter River was humming when they got back. Lydia tried to guess what was going on from her seat but could draw no conclusions - Betelgeuse feigned disinterest, claiming little towns flipped out over any little thing and hacking up phlegm. Listening to him hack and rattle off insults, and occasionally looking back to see him sprawling on the back seat, Lydia thought about him covered in mold and wondered what was wrong with her. He was disgusting, and if he'd made a move she would have let him - had she always been like this? Was this why Ginger wasn't even remotely surprised? And here she thought she'd had her shit together. Pulling up the main road through Winter River, she reminded him that visibility rules were back on and nobody but her should be seeing him. He grumbled, but it seemed particularly important considering how many people were around. Practically the whole town was out and talking, hovering by windows. They were so distracted they didn’t even wave, which was strange in and of itself. Between her parents and reputation, Lydia was well-known well-liked in that impersonal way that local celebrities were. It was unusual that she was ignored, and while normally she’d welcome the lack of attention this time it bothered her.

“Real fuckin’ hotbed of activity today, all thirty people are out,” Betelgeuse snorted.

“I can’t tell what they’re-”

“ _Fuck_.”

Lydia jumped and glanced behind her and found a scraggly-looking cat pressing himself as low to the seat as possible. “What the fuck?”

“Don’t stop, go go go.”

Stopping at a traffic sign, Lydia’s stomach clenched uncomfortably. She turned back to him again. “You’re freaking me out, Beej.”

“ _I’m_ freakin’ the fuck out, gun it! Get- oh _fuck_.”

She turned back to the street only to see a familiar middle-aged woman dressed all in pastels, accompanied by a camera crew with  _Paranormal America_ shirts and a man dressed in khakis and a black turtleneck staring at her. The man spoke to the woman and then came around and tapped on her window, tailed by an assistant holding what Lydia knew were disclosure forms. The woman was staring vehemently at Betelkitty in the back seat, and Lydia had a hard time looking away from her. This was not good. Her stomach felt like a rock. She rolled down the window just enough to speak, and finally looked at the man. He started with a grin.

“Hey there, I’m-”

“Would you people move, please? I’m not signing those,” she said, watching the assistant try and edge the papers towards her window.

“Maybe you don’t understand, lady, we’re with the TV. I’m Gene Barker, the host of _Paranormal_ -”

“I know who you are. Please move away from my car.”

They were starting to attract a crowd of onlookers and Lydia willed herself not to start panicking. The woman in pastels had come around and had her hand on Gene’s arm, pushing him back gently, and Lydia thought the psychic looked just as fake and annoying as she did on TV. She leaned down in Gene's place, reprimanding her partner for effect. There was nothing sincere about her. Barbara would probably disagree with Lydia - she was even more fake in real life.

“Gene, don’t you know who this is! The photographer with that beautiful spirit-photography work, have a little professional respect. So sorry, Miss Deetz.”

“Yeah. Can you-”

"Of course, of course. I did want to introduce myself, I'm-"

"I'm in a rush."

The psychic narrowed her eyes briefly, in a way Lydia knew well - the way that all rich, well-put together, conservative women did when they were letting you know you had something serious to worry about but at least it was smiling at you. "Of course, Miss Deetz. We met your family this morning – maybe we’ll see you around at the house tomorrow.”

“I don’t really-”

“Oh, don’t worry, I understand you don’t do interviews. Your mother invited us. We’re just touring the town. You know, what with all the strange things happening here recently, it’s really been a point of discussion among my colleagues. But of course you know, it was obviously an influence on _you._ Look at me, forgetting myself, just talk talk talk. We’ll just get out of your way. Nice cat.”

The psychic smiled, sickly sweet, and stepped away. Lydia rolled up her window, not breaking eye contact and letting her annoyance cover up the fact that she was _terrified_ by the fact that she could see Betelgeuse in the back seat. The woman kept smiling until her window was up, and then turned and ushered the production crew across the street for more b-roll. Releasing a deep breath, Lydia fought the urge to turn around and ask what the fuck just happened, knowing there were people watching. She let the car edge slowly away from the stop before lowering her foot more firmly on the gas and heading towards the covered bridge. Her grip on the steering wheel was tight and her arms were shaking.

“I told you to fuckin’ gun it.”

“It was a stop sign! Why didn’t you just juice yourself back to the house?”

“She woulda seen me anyway, I thought I was gonna throw her off, okay. Trust me, you thought _I_ was a pain in the ass, you ain’t seen nothin’ like that bitch. Total psycho, real freak of nature.”

“You _know_ her. How are you just bringing this up now? Where did you even meet her?”

“Uh. Work?”

Lydia gave him a quick scornful look over her shoulder. He was back to himself, pressed just as close to the seat as he had been when he was a cat, and when she turned back to the road a piece of paper wedged under her windshield wiper caught her eye immediately. The woman must have slipped it there without her noticing, although she wasn’t sure how. It was a business card that read “Cynthia Parson, Psychic, _Paranormal America_ ”. She swallowed a dry lump in her throat.

“You have about fifteen seconds before I make you tell me what the hell just happened, Betelgeuse.”

“That psycho thinks I’m Satan.”

“She thinks you’re _what_?”

“Right, _me?_ I’m fuckin’ angelic.”

“Betelgeuse-”

“Okay, Christ. I’ve met her a couplea times, she thinks I’m Satan. A _malicious presence_. Which, y’know, to be fair, it ain’t wrong. She catches wind I’m out and workin’, she comes on down and sticks her big fuckin’ nose in where it don’t belong. I’m like a god damn magnet for her. Honestly, I think she just wants my dick. I’ve told her I’m a one-woman kinda man but she is fuckin’ persistent.”

“What’s a couple times mean.”

“I dunno. Uh. Six or seven? Bitch is obsessed with me.”

“A psychic with a TV show who thinks you’re Satan is in town-”

“I told you to gun it.”

“- and she’s found you _six or seven times before_? What did you do to her?”

“Nothin’ I wouldn’t do to anybody else. Other’n you. And maybe Babs, if we’re bein’ honest. On the scale of vendettas we’re talkin' monumental. She's got it out for me. Look, that bitch is a walkin’ ghost holocaust. All she wants to do is _cleanse_ shit. Cleanse my fuckin’ ass that’s what she can do.”

“Betelgeuse-”

“Don’t sweat it babes, they were rookies. Poor saps. _I_ can hold my own. Professional risk, comes with the territory. Ghosts hire bio-exorcist, bio-exorcistees hire dumb psychic cunt.”

“What have you been doing at night? How did they even hear about you?”

“Nothin’ you don’t already know about. I told ya. Fuckin’ magnet, sweet tooth for the juice. She’s probably had this place on her radar since you started lettin’ me out.”

Lydia brought her car into the drive way and shut it off. Her brain felt like static. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“Honey, if I told you about every psychic I’ve ever pissed off we’d be here all day.”

“Yeah, but this one is on TV. We have physically sat in front of a TV and had discussions about this woman, around you, and you said _nothing_.”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

"Juno came into my house and freaked me out about exorcists, and I told you, and you _still_ didn't think it was important? Are you shitting me?"

"It  _ain't_ important. I've kicked her ass before, it's what I do. It's not a big fuckin' deal."

She looked back and found him leaning between the driver and passenger seat, peering at her. He narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice.

“Yer gonna lock me up, ain’t ya.”

“Are you gonna mess with her if I don’t?”

“Who, me?”

Not in the mood, Lydia shut off the car and got out. She pulled her bag from the back seat, and started for the house.

“Lyds, c’mon honey it ain’t-”

“You were scared of her,” Lydia stopped and turned, finding him only a few steps behind her.

“Bullshit, I was _enthusiastically unexcited._ I can handle myself-”

“You’re not the only one here!” Lydia dropped her bag to shove at his chest, and he took a few steps back. “Juno was warning me about her, wasn’t she? When she said to be careful, she was warning me about that lady. And now she’s here, and she’s going to come to the house and find Adam and Barbara, and you knew she’d be here if I let you out and you didn’t warn me. And if I don't lock you up, you're gonna fuck with them because you can't resist it, and they'll catch it on camera and we'll be _fucked_. And if I do lock you up, they'll come to the house tomorrow, and we'll still be fucked.”

Betelgeuse blinked. Lydia felt her eyes watering.

“If anything happens to them because of you, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Babe, just don’t let her into the house.”

“You’ve met my step-mother, right? They’ve got a camera, they’re getting into the house.”

“Lyds-”

“Do you understand what this looks like? This is a _jackpot_ for her. My big break before all that fashion shit was photos of Adam and Barb _here_ , in this house, and if she knows what ghosts look like on film she knows it’s not just dodging and burning. She knows who I am, and I’m pretty sure she knows I have you, and she’s going to come up here and find _them_. Delia doesn’t understand this shit, unless I’m here babysitting her she’s going to latch on to ‘cleanse’ and think it’s nice and then they’re screwed. You could get away. I could tell you to go anywhere I wanted, and you’d be fine. They won’t be.”

“Lydia-”

“No. You’re a selfish jackass.” Lydia was at a boiling point. He was aware – he backed off with his hands raised. She took a moment to cover her eyes with her hand and take a deep breath, before looking at him again. “Can you get rid of them?”

“Well, yeah. Bio-exorcist. Won’t even charge you. That’s just the kinda guy-”

“If you let them get anywhere near the house I’ll never talk to you again.”

“Got it, can do, no problem. Whatever it takes, I'll strangle-”

“ _No_. Nobody gets hurt. Just scare them away, and take out the cameras first.”

“Understood.”

“When you’re done, we need to have a talk.”

Lydia didn’t wait for him to respond – she walked the rest of the way to the house and went inside, pale with frustration. He stood in the driveway a few more seconds after she turned and walked away before disappearing.

 

* * *

 

 

She had been told about meeting the camera crew as she entered the house, her parents apparently oblivious to the expression on her face. Her father had insisted they seemed very nice and professional, and Delia mentioned the “atrociously unfashionable woman” had known about what had previously been Lydia’s least favorite of Delia’s sculptures and so she couldn’t be totally without taste. When she’d told them that Betelgeuse had warned her Cynthia was dangerous, she was treated with a “She dresses like Barbie, how bad could she be?” Trying to calm herself down, Lydia told herself that Delia would have been more receptive if she’d gotten to her before the cameras had. The temptation of free publicity was too much.

The Maitlands were considerably more receptive. Lydia imagined being exorcised would do that to you. Probably something you wanted to avoid again.

“You could just draw a door,” Lydia suggested, looking at Adam to confirm. “Head over to the Neitherworld until they go.”

“It won’t stop them. If they find anything of ours, or if they do something to the house – it doesn’t matter where we are. But we could try scaring them off.”

“I dunno. She’s gone head to head with Beej a couple times, and if Otho could mess you guys up...” Lydia grimaced. She looked at her hands. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have let him out.”

“It’s okay, Lydia.” Adam leaned against the arm of the couch and gripped her shoulder. “You told him to get rid of them, right? I’m sure he’ll handle it. He _is_ a professional.”

“Yeah.”

"Honestly, I thought she was full of shit. I'm amazed she's the real deal," Barbara shrugged, and nudged her arm. "I bet the rest of the crew's fresh meat, though. They’re probably big chickens, wait until they see him in action." 

Lydia nodded, and didn't feel particularly reassured.

 

* * *

 

 

The attic had a good view of the town. After dark, she sat in the tower and watched out the window with binoculars, focusing on the hotel she knew they must be staying at - both because the owner always claimed it was haunted, and because it was the only one in town. He’d wait until night – if he did anything in the day it’d be easier to catch on film, and she hoped he understood that she was angry enough that she was ready to put him in the basement and never let him out. A TV debut would not help his case. She tried not to think about the burning sensation of betrayal – he probably hadn’t even thought about it being a problem. It wasn’t intentional. But it was infuriating, and selfish, and she was mad at herself for being so endeared by him before. His thoughtfulness towards her wasn’t even about _her,_ it was because he wanted her attention and she’d been stupid to think it was anything else.

For a long time, nothing happened. She got stiff on the stool she’d brought up to the window, and cold enough that her fingers turned pink. At about nine thirty, lights flickered in the hotel, turned bright white, and then lowered to a dim blue. Over the span of about fifteen minutes, Lydia watched two of the three cars parked in the parking lot drive away and drive away in varying states of recklessness. She imagined it was quite the performance and for about two seconds wished she’d gone with him before she realized how dumb that would have been. The last thing that would help the situation was her being caught on camera with anything crazy happening.

The third car remained parked. Another fifteen minutes passed and it still didn’t move.

“Are they gone?” Barbara whispered behind her. Lydia shook her head.

“One’s still there.”

“What’s he doing?”

"I don't know. I haven't been able to see anything through the windows," Lydia shook her head again and leaned towards the town like it was going to help her see. On cue, the light in the window shifted to a shade of green that had been seared into her memory. She cursed and dropped the binoculars.

"That's a bad color," Adam said, leaning over Lydia's shoulder.

"He can get out of it," Barbara affirmed.

Lydia wasn't sure about that. She'd declawed him. Her stomach flipped, and she shot of the stool and ran down the stairs.

“What is it?” Barbara followed her down the stairs, Adam close behind her.

“I told him not to hurt anybody, if she’s got him he might not be able to get out.”

“What are you going to do?”

Lydia didn’t know and she couldn’t bring herself to say it. She ran through the living room and grabbed her keys from the kitchen counter, and ignored her parent’s questions. The Maitlands were left at the door calling at her to be careful.

She was not paying attention as she was driving. She had to get to the hotel on the other side of town. Stop signs were run. The people who were still awake and had noticed the light show and come out to the sidewalk pointed as she drove by, and she didn’t notice them. The part of her panicking about what that green light could mean and the part of her convinced that he could handle himself completely had met in the middle and turned her focus into a sharp point focused only on getting to where she needed to be.

The car screeched as she turned into the parking lot and she slammed on the breaks, not bothering to shut off the engine as she tumbled out. The light had gotten brighter and she could vividly remember that exact color spilling around Barbara and Adam’s silhouettes as they shriveled. It came from the lobby, where the windows had been blown out, and she had a perfect view.

Betelgeuse’s exorcism did not look the same as the Maitlands’.

He was not shriveling. He was clinging to the ceiling, nails scraping huge gouges as he struggled to get away from Cynthia Parson who stood in the middle of the room screaming, and he was spilling what looked like black tar from his mouth. He moved like he was tethered to her and being pulled towards her, desperately trying to fight the motion. Cynthia was disheveled and battered-looking, surrounded by rubble and the remnants of Betelgeuse's previous acts of terror. For all Lydia knew this was a botched fight and not an exorcism at all, but she wasn’t going to wait to find out. After calling for him and finding he either couldn’t hear her or whatever was going was stopping him from following instructions, Lydia’s brain shut down.

She ran to the front door, across the room, and tackled Cynthia Parson.

They hit the ground hard and he dropped heavily to the floor. Cynthia’s elbow caught her stomach and she gasped for breath, and barely caught it before pink nails dug into her arms and shook her.

“Child, I’m freeing you! He’s had you under his thumb but you don’t have to stay there. You’ve been possessed. You don’t have to listen to him anymore, you’re free, you’re-”

Lydia didn’t wait to hear what else she had to say: she pulled back her arm and punched Cynthia in the face. She slipped on the way down, the grip on her arms throwing her weight off, and ended up glancing off her jaw and hitting the ground but it was enough. Cynthia flopped backwards, and didn't get back up.

She cursed, grasping her hand to her chest and pushing off the ground. The light was gone and she stumbled backwards, looking behind her, where Betelgeuse still lay on the floor belly-down. He was tense and arched, like he was trying to lift himself and failing.

“Beej,” Lydia forced out, running over and crouching by him. He grabbed for her thigh and fell towards her, into her lap. “Ghost with the Most my ass, I thought you said you could handle her yourself. You are so full of shit.”

He shivered like he was trying to laugh. Lydia felt something warm and liquid, and realized it was that black tar he'd been spilling and it was seeping into her skirt and making the floor beneath her slick, and her hand throbbed and nothing felt real.

“C’mon. Walk it off. You’re okay, I took care of her.”

He didn’t move for a few seconds, and then pushed himself up enough to put his arm over one of her shoulders. Dimly, Lydia realized this wasn’t going to end well – she managed to push herself up onto her feet, dragging him half-up with her and knew he’d make some terrible joke about being dead weight if he could manage it, and it worried her that he didn’t. He struggled to right himself, and she was too small to lift him the rest of the way up.

“We gotta go before she gets up. Help me.”

Pushing himself the rest of the way up, he slung his arm fully around her shoulders and leaned in, but there was enough tension in his legs to keep him up. For a few seconds Lydia was tempted to ask him to just take them somewhere else before she truly realized something was horribly, deeply wrong and it wouldn’t work. Instead she just tugged him towards the door.

They made it down the front steps and over to the car before he stumbled and brought both of them down to to the gravel drive. The rocks bit into her knees and she didn’t care. She pushed him onto his back and crouched beside him, hands flitting between his chest and face. His eyes were rolled back, and his mouth was still oozing.

“Betelgeuse, stop fucking around. I’m sorry, please.”

His hand grasped at her waist, gripping painfully. She pressed her forehead to his. The next time she forced out words they were quiet and she was crying and couldn’t stop.

“The Maitlands got better. Don’t tell me the house ghosts are gonna show you up.” She tried to laugh and failed, and instead she just choked on tears. 

His hand clutched at her, and rubbed, and she pulled back enough to see him looking at her.

“Get better.”

It wasn’t going to happen. She kissed his forehead and gripped his shirt.

“Please, don’t leave.”

Another hand came up and grasped at the back of her neck, and the next thing she could process was her mouth slipping against his and thinking that the black tasted like dirt and she didn’t care. The hand at her waist was falling away and his shirt was slipping out of her hand, his fingers trailed down her cheek, and then her forehead was touching the ground. Lydia crouched and curled her fingers, shaking and staring at the ground where he’d been. A few seconds passed before she understood the only thing she was touch was gravel, and he was gone. _  
_

 

 


	13. Shadowing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get really strange.

Barbara waited for the door to close, and then went downstairs to check the mail. She didn’t know who was collecting it - they came twice a week to bring the mail from the box at the end of the drive up to the entryway. Charles and Delia had been gone for a month, off to their condo in New York. Lydia hadn’t been around much, having left Winter River shortly after the film crew departed. She hadn't called much, either.

She leaned against the banister and sorted through envelopes and magazines. She thought that the sound of the paper was extremely loud. Every noise seemed loud now that the house was so quiet on a regular basis. The silence made her throat feel tight - once it had seemed so normal and now it was just sad. Her fingers caught on a postcard and her face lit up.

“Adam!”

He walked in from the kitchen, and she flipped it towards him grinning. “Got another one.”

Adam smiled and closed the distance. “I’m glad she’s doing something. She had me worried.”

“It’s good, too.”

He put his arm around her and she leaned in, looking at the promotional image for the gallery show Lydia had agreed to. Shot from the porch, a photo of the house with three distinct shadows without a source against a wall, two side by side with their hands entwined and another off in the corner, standing without a care and holding a cigarette to his mouth.

 

* * *

 

 

Her parents had showed up, trying to be supportive. It was the first show they'd ever come to. That would have made her uncomfortable on a good day, but Lydia hadn't had a good day in months. To her credit, she tried to be sociable - she greeted them and hugged them and then her energy was gone and she went back to avoiding everything she could, especially cameras and Jacques. Even breathing was exhausting, and the last thing she wanted was her agent asking her to talk about her work. It had taken her long enough to even agree to another gallery show, and it was painful to be around the photos, and she was in no mood to be shown around. She’d only made it a few hours before she slipped out, and went home and slept. A voicemail from Jacques had told her it went well, there were interested buyers, folks asking about a book. She hadn’t returned that call yet. Instead she’d slept for another three days and stared at the wall when she finally couldn't sleep any more.

Lydia flopped onto her side and crossed her arms over her stomach. Barely half an hour’s walk away from her apartment was a room full of pictures of him. Some of them were even developed enough to recognize him – Ginger had, although she’d kept quiet about it. She had tugged on Lydia's dress and wiggled her hips and winked, but she’d kept quiet. Before the show opened she'd thought that being in that room would be its own special brand of torture, and then she wondered if maybe she deserved it. Hanging the show had been terrible – she’d felt like crying the whole time and she was exhausted after, and while her day-to-day emotional capability had been pretty stagnant it made her miss him in a way that sent shooting pains through her chest and stomach. Now she wanted to go back by herself, outside of the opening, just to be around him. It would probably hurt even more.

It was her fault. She definitely deserved it.

She managed to get herself dressed, which felt like it took way more energy and time than it should have, and shove a piece of bread in her mouth before she left. The walk passed in a blur and suddenly she was standing there, surrounded. The gallery had just opened and was empty barring the sitter, and she had some time to herself. At least a few minutes to stare at him and feel like puking. Lydia walked around the gallery and stopped at a photo taken in front of the Matiland's old store, a candid shot of a woman being startled by something she couldn't seen. On film it was a shadowy blur behind her. 

After everything had happened, she’d expected a visit from Juno that never came. She’d expected some kind of follow up from Cynthia Parsons, but that didn’t happen either. She’d also half-expected him to be waiting at home for her, a vindictive and brutal revenge for her yelling at him earlier, but he hadn’t been. Instead she’d just stumbled through the door and sobbed into Barbara’s dress like she’d had her arms and legs broken, unable to explain.

Lydia wiped at her face, realizing she’d been crying. She sniffed and heard a shuffle behind her, and turned to see the gallery sitter pretending that she hadn’t been staring. Lydia looked back at her work and at the photo Ginger had recognized, remembering a group of critics gathered around it and pointing as she stood there feeling disgusting and exploitative, and she sobbed. It burst forth suddenly, and she covered her mouth afterwards.

“Do you… do you need a tissue?”

Lydia nodded and turned, making her way over to the sitter without making eye-contact. The sitter pulled a box from behind the counter.

“I’m sorry,” Lydia sniffed, taking a handful. “Homesick.”

The door bell rang and Lydia looked over at it on instinct, not expecting to feel as violated as she did. It was a mistake to hang these photos in public, she realized. But the person who triggered the bell never made it inside, and instead did an about-turn and walked the other direction. A sensation she couldn't name settled in Lydia’s gut and she realized she’d seen that person before. A look at the sitter told her she was just as surprised. Lydia dabbed at her eyes and collected herself. “I'm bad for business, I guess. I think he was hanging around outside when we were hanging the show.”

“I’m pretty sure he was here yesterday, too. He must be a fan. Or a creep. Anyway, I'm here by the hour. I don't really care if you're the only one who comes in.”

Lydia laughed a little and pocketed the tissue. “Was he at the opening?”

“Not that I remember. I feel like I would, he is- somethin’.”

A nagging feeling tugged at Lydia’s spine. She asked the sitter the time, and then thanked her for the tissue and left. When she got home she took a shower and ate proper food, and tried not to focus on defining the nagging tug. Ginger called her, and she absently set up something with her and Delia, and she thought maybe the only reason she had the energy to do it was because of that nagging. It was the first time she'd felt something new in weeks.

The next day she went back to the gallery and sat in the cafe across the street with no real plan beyond wanting to see if he came back. It was two hours before it paid off - she was finished with her coffee and just stared. He spent thirty minutes there. Lydia watched him through the window, a shock of blond hair and a suit with his hands in his pockets and sunglasses on his face. The nagging tug was screaming at her to go across the street and that it was _definitely him_ but that seemed way less than likely. It seemed more likely that she had lost her fucking mind. She was so depressed she was hallucinating. She couldn’t really see his face under those glasses or from the distance she was at, and he was absolutely sent to the Lost Souls room, and she tried telling herself that it didn’t matter that he moved the same way. The same nonchalance, the gestures of boredom possessed by people with too much energy, the same cocky surety. It couldn't be him. It just wasn't possible.

She wasn’t able to ignore the nagging tug when it told her to run after him when he walked away. She’d tried to ignore it, half raised out of her seat when he exited, and then when he disappeared from her view suddenly she was up and moving.

He moved down the street like he owned it, and she followed him half a block behind. Close enough to catch him when he did a sudden turn down alleys, far enough to to lose him walking through busy outdoor markets and crowds of people. He seemed to know everyone he passed, exchanging greetings, taking food, pulling things out of his pockets and passing them to strangers so subtly that she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been following him for blocks. Blocks, and blocks, and blocks. How long had it been? She had no idea – suddenly they were in a completely different part of town and she hadn’t even realized. It didn't occur to her until he darted into a shady looking apartment building and she really looked around. Lydia followed, slipping by the people on the stoop and sliding in through the door before it closed. She saw him head up the stairs and waited for a few seconds before following him up, keeping to the wall so he wouldn’t see her.

He exited on the third floor and now alone in the stairwell, she found herself wondering what the hell she was doing. She’d followed this stranger to a part of town she rarely went to, into a building filled with shouting people and barking dogs, and she had no idea what she was going to gain by following him up to this apartment. What was the point? It was just going to upset her, because despite the physical similarity and that nagging gut feeling she had, it could not be him. Lydia rounded the hall she’d seen him go down and saw no one there. A mix of panic and disappointment gripped her and she took a few steps forward.

A hand shot from the shadows on the nearest door and pulled her inside. Before she could respond the door was shut and she was backed against it, a massive hand on her mouth.

“Get your kicks followin' people around, little girl?”

He leaned over her, fingers of his free hand drumming on the door. The glasses were off and he was staring at her intently, and his nails weren’t long and he wasn’t that pale and the circles around his eyes weren't as dark and he didn’t smell like dirt, but it was absolutely him. He had the same hooked nose and fleshy lips, the same arched brow. His hand slipped down from her mouth to her shoulder to keep her there. Lydia wouldn't have been able to move if she wanted to.

“C’mon. Spit it out.”

“Beej?”

“Excuse me?”

Lydia gaped, and opened her mouth a few times before forcing out a ‘you don’t remember me’. His brow knit and he looked her over. He took his hand away and stood up straight with his hands on his hips like she was confusing, and her eyes started burning with unshed tears because _how was this possible,_ before he broke and grinned and snorted and turned away.

“I’m just fuckin’ with you, babe.”

Lydia exhaled a breath that felt like it had been punched from her as he walked towards the kitchen in this dark apartment that stank of weed and had kitchen counters full of electronics in various states of disrepair.

“For somebody so god damn small you suck at subtlety. You’re not good at it _at all_. Took me half a block to figure out you were there. Although you are good at stickin’ around.”

“What’s happening?”

“You’re standin’ at the door like a fuckin’ idiot. You want a beer, or -”

“Stop.” Lydia leaned back against the door feeling dizzy, hand up.

He paused halfway in the fridge and watched her, before pulling out one bottle. “No beer. Got it.”

Lydia shook her head, trying to find a solid thought. “Where... how long? How long have you been here like this?”

“I dunno. What, six months? Eight? Time’s an abstract concept and between you and me, I have had _no_ ability to grasp it since I got back. It's honestly a little embarrassing. I'm late all the time. You know me, stickler for accuracy.”

“The whole time? You’ve been here the whole time?”

“What, since that whole exorcism fiasco? Yeah.”

“And you knew I was here too?”

“Yeah. Well, not the _whole_ time. I saw my handsome fuckin’ face in a paper and figured you were around.” He popped the cap off the bottle and leaned in over the counter next to her. “I think you’ve got a crush on me.”

“I thought- I thought you were gone, I thought-”

“Thought that fuckin’ cunt dug another six feet for me?” He stood up straight and hawked, and spat into the sink before swigging beer. Absolutely him. Lydia tried standing but her knees threatened to give, so she leaned back on the door again. “As if.”

“How are you even here right now?”

“Fuck if I know. One minute I'm dyin' the Big Death and I _finally_ get to first base, and the next I’m passed out in an alley with a suitcase next to two bums fucking and remembering what the hell a back ache feels like – which is not something I missed at all, by the way.”

“And you’ve been here the whole time.”

“Yeah, we went over that.”

“You watched me set up the show.”

“Yeah. I’ve also watched you on the bus, and in a department store, and eating-”

"And it didn't occur to you to tell me?”

He looked at her, considering, lips pursed and fingers shifting on the beer. When he was finished looking her over he shoved his hand in his pocket and looked down at his bottle. “Dunno. Didn’t figure I’d hold the same appeal. Undead force of nature bending to your every whim ain’t exactly the same as uh. This.” He gestured broadly to the apartment and to himself. “Plus I’m warm now, dunno if that'll work for you.”

Lydia blinked at him and felt like she was out of things to say. She wanted to be angry at him. Her brain short circuited and brought her back to _it’s him it’s him he’s here he’s here._ He was saying these words and his body was doing these movements that all said he was joking but his eyes kept flitting up to her face like he was waiting for her to tell him he was right, and she pushed herself off the door and walked over to him and pulled him down to kiss him.

He tasted like cigarettes and beer and toothpaste.

The beer bottle dropped to the ground and shattered as he walked her backwards, and it was quickly joined by the arm full of junk he pushed off the counter. He lifted her onto the recently cleared space without pulling back at all, mouth locked against hers. She ran her hands through his hair and grabbed at his jacket and felt him pressing against her and he was warm and his heart was beating. His hand was creeping over her thigh and she realized she’d put her legs around his waist and was loosening his tie.

“BJ, what the fuck, dude, are you fucking up my kitchen.”

He tore away from her angrily and directed his rage at the figure that had appeared in the poorly lit living room. One hand was on her thigh still and his hips were pressed against hers, but he was spitting at the intruder and pointing at him. If she wasn't so used to the tone he was using it would have terrified her.

“Do I look interruptible to you right now?”

“You look like you’re dropping fuckin' glass and beer in my kitchen and fucking up my merchandise, knock it the hell off.”

He flipped the intruder off, and was about to say something else when Lydia tugged on his shirt, and it distracted him. His attention was back on her and the only thing he could manage was “Yeah sure Dave whatever” before putting his other hand on her thigh and digging his fingers in. He offered her a crooked smile.

“This ain’t my apartment.”

“Thank god.”

She looked down at his hand on her thigh and caught a glimpse of his watch - if she didn't leave she was going to be late to meet Delia and Ginger and they'd think she'd killed herself or something. She sighed and leaned forward, putting her forehead against his shoulder. He hesitated for a moment and moved his hands from her thighs to her back, and she felt him swallow. This was insane. Absolutely insane. Lydia took a deep breath and she straightened, placing her hands on his chest to push him away. A very solid chest. Lydia used to feel weird thinking about him as something desirable, and now that he was living and breathing it felt weird in an entirely different way. Unreal. He made a noise of protest, stepping back anyway.

“I've gotta go.”

"You're killin' me, Lyds, c'mon."

"I have to," she swallowed, suddenly feeling incapable of looking at him. Her face felt flushed and she was nauseous, and her hands were shaking. She made for the door.

He was right behind her, and he put his hand against the door when she tried to open it. Lydia took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, as she looked back over her shoulder. His face was bizarre, flushed and human and very alive, expression living somewhere between concern and frustration. “You follow me back here, and now you gotta go.”

“Yeah. Tough luck, I guess you should have come and found me after you woke up instead of hanging out in Dave's trashy apartment," Lydia swallowed and tried to smile. She wanted to put her hands on him. She also wanted badly to run away.

“Yeah, that was a strategic error on my part. Tell ya what, I was busy tonight but I can clear my schedule.”

“More people to stalk?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m a professional. I can push it to tomorrow, though, they’ll understand.”

"I guess you could come by around seven. I was gonna ask if you knew where I lived but I think I probably know the answer."

"I am real observant."

"You're a huge creep."

He shrugged a little, and took his hand away from the door. Lydia fought the urge to bolt. "Little bit of both. Seven?"

“Seven," Lydia nodded. She reached for his hand quickly to squeeze it, and before he could pull her close to him she opened the door and left.

The time between leaving the apartment and reaching the sidewalk was a total blur. She hailed a cab when she hit the street, and hyperventilated as subtly as she could in the back. Was that real? Had she hallucinated that whole thing? She tasted stale beer and spit on her mouth, felt the spots his stubble had grated against, felt his hands still touching her legs. She’d definitely been kissing somebody real, and another human had acknowledged him as BJ and she thought the chances of that were pretty slim, but on the other hand, what the fuck. And if it was him, he'd just _not come back_. He'd left her alone even though he'd known where she was, even though he could have gone to Winter River if he didn't. Who knew what kind of shit he was getting up to - as a ghost he was harmless to her, but as a man? She doubted she could even imagine all the ways his chaotic tendencies could manifest in modern life. Ultimately, though, that didn't matter to her, and that realization alone was terrifying. He could murder somebody, and she'd still love him.

Lydia swallowed and looked out the window, thinking about all the times she might have seen him without realizing it.

She got to the restaurant half an hour late, and saw Ginger spot her through a giant window. She waived, and moved her hands at Delia like _see I told you she was fine_ , as Lydia dashed across the street as quickly as she could. She was going to be useless. Her brain was fried - she nearly walked into a waitress as she entered the dining area.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, slinging her coat on the back of the chair. “I got distracted.”

“Of course, honey, no sweat.” Ginger smiled. When it mattered, Ginger was great at pretending that Lydia had absolutely no problems, and so her smile didn’t feel patronizing at all. It was part of why they had stayed friends for so long, and Lydia appreciated it even more than she usually did.

“We ordered you a drink,” Delia offered, gesturing at a martini on the table.

Lydia nodded a small thanks before grabbing and downing it like it was water. Ginger's smile faltered slightly. Delia blinked at her, still holding a smile now tinted by a look that Lydia knew was a mix of alarm and incredulous concern.

“What were you up to?” 

For two seconds, Lydia wanted to snap at her, transported immediately back to life as a teenager. A second later she realized that this wasn't just awkward stepmother concern - Delia had been there. Delia had spent hours losing time on buses and on sidewalks, depressed and self-medicating, following Otho around and she lucky he was there. Delia saw how Lydia was living and she saw her coming in late to lunch and drinking too quickly, and she saw herself in all of it. Lydia had a hard time breaking eye contact, thinking about what to say, and figured the truth was best.

“I was following a guy who looked like BJ.”

Delia balked and diverted her wide-eyed look to her glass.

“Oh shit, was it him?” Ginger grinned, grabbing her shoulder. “Did he see the show?”

Quick with alarm, Delia looked back at Lydia and gestured to Ginger, who in turn looked back at Delia with a concerned expression. Lydia half-glared at her stepmother. “It’s okay, Ginger’s met him. We came down for Halloween last year. And actually, yeah it was. And he did.”

“It was?” Delia's eyes went impossibly wider.

“Yeah. He’s just been avoiding me like a moody jerk but he’s been here for a few months.”

“Did ya have a fight or somethin’?” Ginger asked.

“Right after Halloween. He bailed,” Lydia tore her eyes from Delia and looked at Ginger, who hadn’t lifted her hand from Lydia’s shoulder.

“Aw, honey, is that why you been so off?”

“I guess so.”

“That jackass, what’d he do?”

“It was me. But I think it’s gonna be fine. We’re meeting up tonight.”

“Wait, I’m sorry,” Delia held her hand up. “I’m… I’m still stuck on him being _back_. I thought he was- and _how_ does Ginger know him? You didn’t bring him _here,_ did you?”

“Aw, he wasn’t _that_ bad,” Ginger laughed. “And some costume. Leave it to Lydia to get hitched to somebody like that out of the blue, what morbid sense of humor huh. I guess it was probably a shock to you too.”

“You could say that. You could say I’m still confused,” Delia gave a sharp and manic grin to Ginger, and then shifted it pointedly to Lydia.

“Me too,” Lydia scoffed, and thought about ordering another drink. "I’ll update you when I know more.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Broke this up into two chapters for the sake of consistency, but the mature rating really kicks in in the next chapter. Thanks to everybody who's stuck through a mountain of fluff and melodrama!


	14. Once, Twice, Third Time's the Charm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia and Betelgeuse hash it out.

Ginger wrapped her arms around Lydia’s shoulders and squeezed. When she spoke her voice was quiet.

“I’m glad you’re doin’ okay, honey, I been real worried. You call me if you need me tonight, okay? If you have another fight, you just call.”

“Thanks, Ging,” Lydia squeezed her back and then let her go. Delia was waiting by the entry to the restaurant, and when they separated Ginger waived emphatically before walking the other direction.

“She has so much energy, I don’t know how you handle it,” Delia said, joining Lydia as she passed.

“It’s kind of nice.”

“Lydia, when you say that you saw him-”

“I mean it.”

“Like a ghost.”

“Like he’s alive. Like he’s an actual breathing human.”

“How is that even possible?” Delia sounded almost exasperated. Lydia shrugged. “And you just saw him on the street?”

“I saw him at the gallery yesterday, and then I went back to see if he showed up again and I followed him.”

“And you’re sure it’s him?”

“A hundred percent.”

“Oh my god.”

Lydia looked up at Delia, who was just shaking her head in disbelief.

“I can’t decide if he’d be more terrifying as a ghost or a man.”

“Well... he was a pain in the ass when he was dead but he had to listen to me. Human BJ can’t turn into a weird snake monster but he really doesn’t seem like he’s got his shit together in a very big way.”

“I don’t know if I can handle that. I don’t know if your father can handle that. Honestly I’m amazed that the world is still spinning, how can _anybody_ handle that. And you let him around Ginger? Really? God, that explains that weird dance thing she was doing at the gallery. That girl, I swear to god.”

“It was Halloween, Delia, nobody was gonna be able to tell.”

“But as your husband?”

“Well. It’s the truth.”

"Lydia, lots of things are true, but that doesn't mean you should go sharing them in public."

Lydia grinned - Delia was funny when she wanted to be. She looked over and saw her shaking her head, laughing breathlessly.

 

* * *

 

 

When she came home she had an armful of groceries, and it was six thirty. He was sitting on the hip-height brick wall outside her building, smoking. Chain smoking. It looked like he’d been there for a considerable amount of time, and he had his suitcase with him. He didn’t notice her approaching, or didn’t appear to, until she was a few feet away. She stopped and watched him stand up, straightening his suit, and felt the panicked urge to run again. Instead she cleared her throat.

“So that wasn’t your apartment, huh.”

“Naw.”

“Do you have an apartment.”

“Nope.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “C’mon, get the keys out of my pocket and let’s go inside. I was going to leave you out here since you’re way too early but I’m afraid somebody’ll call the cops on you and something tells me that would be bad.”

“Very insightful,” he chuckled, and reached into her coat pocket. He took longer than necessary on purpose, she was pretty sure. Definitely sure, as he leaned in and smelled her hair. Keys retrieved, he grabbed his suitcase and led them up the stoop.

Inside, he set his suitcase down next to the door and shoved his hands in his pockets immediately, preoccupied with looking around her space. She busied herself putting food and beer away, trying not to think too hard about what was happening. Who knew what would happen if she started fixating. He was moving his hands over knick-knacks and art. Touching all her furniture. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him start down the hall to her bedroom, and then stop and turn back around. Lydia's stomach was churning and she still felt weirdly panicked. She took a steadying breath and pulled two beers out of the fridge, opening them both.

She handed him a bottle when they met in the middle of the room. He didn’t say thank you, just took it and drank, one hand still in his pockets. It was the first time she’d seen him in good light. The street hadn’t been so bad but she’d been at a distance, and the lighting in the scummy apartment he’d been in was appropriately dark for the setting.

His face was pale. Not quite as pale as it had been, but he didn’t have much on Lydia’s skin tone, and his eyes were easily as dark as hers. Without the higher contrast his eyes weren’t as striking, as noticeably hazel. Otherwise he was the same - same nose and mouth and brow, same structure, same hairline. Stubble on his jaw and lip, brows thick and arched, hair dry-looking and wild like it was bleach damaged. Maybe it was. His roots weren’t showing, and she didn’t expect that level of upkeep from him, but who knew. This living version of him made at least a little more effort. He was either actually sucking in his gut or he’d lost a few pounds.

“Impressive, huh.”

Lydia blinked up at him and saw him looking back, bottle to his mouth and expressionless. Lydia let a smile tug at a corner of her mouth. “You’re always impressive.”

He scoffed a little. “Tell me somethin’ I don’t know. It was a statement, not a question.”

She tried to grin. It wasn’t happening. Any bravado he’d been clinging to faded and he started looking nervous - at least, as nervous as he was capable of looking.

“This is gonna be too weird, ain’t it. I oughta go.”

“ Don’t you dare. I just spent the last six months locked up in here crying all day because I put you in a bad situation and you were  _ gone _ , and now  _somehow_ you're standing here in my living room so I’m allowed to feel a little weird.” She clenched her hand around her beer and felt her eyes start watering, and looked down at her feet. He shifted, but didn’t move away. His hand was out of his pocket and clenching at his side. “I don’t even know if you’re real, or if I’ve just lost it. I hope you are, because I told Ginger and Delia today and if you’re not they’re gonna have me committed.” 

She turned back to the kitchen and downed as much of the beer as she could handle in one go, and then opened her fridge again.

“That guy called you BJ. What’s your name now, is it the same? Are you hungry? I could make dinner if you want, I’ve got-”

His hand appeared beside her and she jumped - he’d moved  _ so quietly _ . The fridge was closed and the bottle was taken from her hand and put on the counter beside her, and another hand placed itself on her hip. Her stomach flipped as she leaned back into him. He was warm and breathing and absolutely real. She hoped. 

“Ain’t hungry.” 

Lydia swallowed and nodded. “Me neither. You can’t be going by the same… same name. That’d be weird. Who names their kid Betelgeuse.”

“Try sayin’ it two more times, see what happens.”

The hand that had come to her neck to move her hair aside was cold from the bottle he’d been holding, and the shock of it turned the second utterance into a gasp. His lips pressed against her throat and the third time she said the name felt strangled. She was spun and lifted by her thighs and pressed back against the fridge, pinned by his body with his fingers digging into her flesh. He growled against her cheek when she locked her arms around his shoulders.

“We got interrupted earlier and I been thinkin’ about this for over a fuckin’ year. You been drivin' me crazy.”

She clung to him, and he lifted her away from the fridge and brought her over to the counter, lips locked against hers. The anxiety had melted into desperate craving, and she felt more drunk than she should have after barely half a beer, fumbling with his tie and shirt buttons while he moved his hands over her thighs to her hips like they were picking up exactly where they left off. He quickly decided that place was a waste of time.

He took over for her, flinging the tie off his neck and moving through the buttons like they weren’t even there. Lydia was a lot better with belts than she was with buttons even with the heady feeling, and rid him of that by the time he switched his attention to her sweater. It joined his shirt and tie on the kitchen floor and his hands moved to her ribs, sliding up to cup her breasts and squeezing. She moaned into his mouth, kicking her shoes off behind him and reaching behind her back to unlatch her bra. It was flung back into the living room.

Making what sounded like a pained noise, he leaned her back and bent to take a breast into his mouth. Lydia kept herself propped on one elbow and let the other hand go to his hair, releasing shuddering breaths as he lathered attention on her. He looked up at her intently and switched to the other breast without breaking eye contact. His tongue wrapped deftly around a nipple and Lydia flushed thinking about where that mouth was going to be next. It seemed like it wasn’t even worth pretending that it wasn’t coming. He pulled her tights down when she lifted her hips for him, rolling them down her legs and then returning to her hips for her panties. When she was completely bare he moved his hands down her side and pressed his mouth to her stomach and kept his gaze on her face. She almost wanted to look away, he was gazing so intently at her. She didn’t – she watched him kiss down her belly, and then to the top of each thigh, and then move in.

He ate her out like he was starving. Lydia tried to still herself but her hips seemed to buck up against him out of their own accord. It didn’t bother him – he just watched her face and kept working his tongue against her clit, and by the time he slid a finger into her she was moaning, begging him to fuck her properly. He’d made it up to three fingers by the time she came, and she came hard, digging her feet into his back, tugging on his hair. Her voice caught briefly before she was able to force out a cry, throat tense like every other muscle in her body. He kept working through it, to the point where she had to push him away.

“Too much,” she gasped, and when he moved back she let her head fall back and put her weight on her elbows, closing her eyes and listening to her heart pounding in her ears. She felt muscles in her legs trembling.

He stood and moved his fingers down her cheek and over her lips, down her jaw and neck to her chest. He left his hand here for a few moments before moving it to the back of her neck and pulling her upright. Lydia opened her mouth when she felt his and tasted herself on his tongue. She tugged at his undershirt and he pulled away to remove it, giving her enough time to realize her eyes were still closed. Opening them felt like an effort, and she still struggled believing what she was seeing. He was about what she’d expected, light hair over his chest and belly, abdomen average, which made his arms look even better. That didn’t feel like such a bad thing to admit now that he was breathing – Betelgeuse had nice arms, and nice hands, and she had missed looking at them. His face was flushed and when she dragged her nails over his chest they left red marks behind and he was _absolutely alive_. He was also unzipping his fly and pulling a condom out of his pocket. For about five seconds she thought about having him carry her to the bedroom, and knew that wouldn’t work. His boots were still on and she wasn’t waiting for that. She took the condom from his fingers and opened the packet herself, watching him bite his lip as she put it on him.

It had been a while, and even though she was relaxed and slick it still burned taking him in. He moved slowly and when he’d entered her completely he held the position, cursing under his breath. His mouth was pressed against the side of her neck and she was running her hands over his back, feeling every muscle in him tremble. All it took for him to move was a slight shift of her hips.

Lydia cried out and braced herself on the counter behind her, one arm still around his neck as he thrust, hips snapping against hers. One hand held her hips and one was between them, rubbing at her clit again, and he was saying filthy things to her. Telling her how she felt, how much he thought about doing this, how hard he'd had to work to get to this point and how long it had taken, encouraging her to beg for him. She might have. She couldn’t remember – it was all a blur and she felt distracted and uncoordinated, and her orgasm was building quickly, and suddenly she was clinging to him with her teeth in his shoulder with all the muscles in her legs spasming as she came again, and he was cursing as his hips stuttered against hers.

She licked over the spot she’d bit down on and he shivered, and she made a note to try that again. He mumbled a breathless " _fuckin’ sadist"_ against her ear and let his lips rest there.

 

* * *

 

 

“Is your name really Betelgeuse?”

He passed her the joint and held the smoke for a few more seconds before exhaling. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Who names their kid Betelgeuse?”

“Last name, babe.”

“Oh. Wow, thinking of you with a first name is weird. That's like, a thing normal people have. Is it a normal-people name? I don't know if I can handle that.”

“Jack,” he chuckled, and took the joint back when she’d finished with it. “John if you’re a cop. BJ if we’re real good pals, y’know what I mean.”

“So what does that make Dave?”

“Either a real good pal or somebody who’s heard me with some real good pals, you be the judge.”

Lydia breathed a laugh. They’d made it to the bed and he’d rid himself of the rest of his clothes, and she lay with her head on his shoulder, pressed to his side. It was two, and her legs felt like they were made of rubber. She felt heady and tired, and her earlier feelings of panic and apprehension were gone. At the back of her mind there was a suspicion that they'd be back tomorrow, accompanied by doubt that this was actually real, but at that moment it didn't matter. Betelgeuse trailed his fingers up her hip and waist. 

“f I’d known it woulda gone this well I’da come found you earlier.”

"Why didn't you?"

"Told you. Didn't think you'd be into it."

"You weren't bothered by that? I mean, I get it, but I was... I was a mess without you. If I'd thought you were out there and you just didn't want anything to do with me I'd have been even worse."

"Never said I been havin' a good time. Just so we're real clear, okay, you can be mad at me if you want 'cause I was a fuckin' chickenshit but-"

"I won't be mad. I - you're not mad at me for what happened are you?"

"Are you shittin' me? That was the best day of my afterlife. Watchin' you punch that creep out was probably what brought me back to life, let's be honest here. That was beautiful. I been jackin' off to that for weeks. Why would I be mad about that, Lydia, goddamn."

"I could've gotten you sent to the Lost Souls room."

"Yeah, and I coulda killed you about a hundred times since we met but y'ain't holdin' that against me, are ya. Didn't happen, water under the bridge. Don't mater anyway 'cause I'm, y'know. Here. Dunno how it happened but here we are, so maybe we oughta just put the last six months behind us."

Lydia nodded, and twisted to put her arm across his chest. She watched him breathing, and shifting in the dark to set the joint to the side and fit her hand around his. The arm around her tightened, and she figured that forgetting the last six months was probably the best options. It just didn't matter. "Yeah. Maybe it was me. Why you're here, I mean. Maybe I turned you into a real boy."

"Just like kissin' a frog," Betelgeuse snorted. "Not too far off, I guess."

Lydia smiled tiredly. The next day, she'd remember Juno talking about technicalities in their marriage, and she'd realize that maybe she really was the source of the change. In the dark, though, listening to his heartbeat, she was distracted.

"So I guess you're gonna start staying here, since you're homeless and Dave seems like the worst person ever," she said, feeling his fingers trail towards her spine from her hip.

"I got a house in Chicago, but yeah, probably."

"You have what, where?"

"Yeah. There was keys and legal shit in the briefcase when I woke up. I even got a job."

"Don't scare me."

"I know, it's terrifying. I'm a fuckin' lawyer."

"No way.”

“What, you don’t see me hangin’ around with low-lifes, chargin’ out the ass for my valuable time and fast talkin’?”

“I don’t see you passing the bar and filling out paperwork.”

“One, bar’s got nothin’ on all that Neitherworld bureaucracy, and two, that’s what fuckin’ paralegals are for, okay.”

“So what do you do all day if some poor kid’s pushing your paper?”

“Well, sometimes I show up in court, and sometimes I show up at a bar, and mostly I just roll around in cash.”

Lydia barked a laugh.

“I’m not jokin’ - gettin' rich off dumb fucks doin’ dumb shit, plus a little fun on the side. Lotta good connections in the-”

“Don’t tell me, I want to be able to plead ignorance. God you are a _mess_.”

“A hot mess. A hot, rich mess. It’s fuckin’ great.”

She closed her eyes, chuckling quietly, and almost missed the smell of dirt and sound of rattling breath. Maybe she could get used to it. Maybe it wouldn't be that different with him like this and they'd fall into their old familiarity immediately. Maybe being able to breathe tempered his tendency to completely and utterly lose his shit, and they'd be fine. Maybe it wasn't too good to be true. He gripped her shoulder and she felt tension in the arm around her, and heard him clear his throat again.

"Ain't kiddin', though, Lyds. I don't really wanna... It oughta be you and me, I don't wanna go anywhere you aren't. That's just facts. We make a good goddamn team."

"Perfect team."

Betelgeuese nodded, and pressed his lips to her forehead. Lydia smiled.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanted to get this up tonight - sorry for any typos, I'll be editing again tomorrow. Thanks for reading, y'all!

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first long-form fan fiction I've ever written, I've been sitting on it for about nine months, and I'm super rusty at writing. The Ghost with the Most has way more cartoon characterization than I planned, and the burn is real slow. 
> 
> I'm so sorry.


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